Everything under heaven
by Helga Schwarzbaum
Summary: Post TLJ: When the new Resistance alliance is intercepted by the First Order war machinery, Rey must once again choose whether to fight until no one is left standing, or to try and subvert the ever-present power of the First Order and the Dark Side by other means.
1. Chapter 1

Sex, drugs, r'n'r, extravaganza, subversion of power, Star Wars, Bukowski and Moorcock – welcome to this orgiastic piece of fanfiction.

* * *

Leia's funeral was on Dagobah – the majority of remaining Resistance was present to mourn her. Mandalorian Nite Owls join their cause roughly around the same time. Rey returns from Ahch-to with a ship she stole from the Guavian Death Gang when they're intercepted by the First Order. Kylo Ren is there and there's an imminent battle ahead. Or is it?

" _Everything under heaven is in utter chaos; the situation is excellent."_

A saying attributed to Mao Zedong.

* * *

"Ren", Rey exclaimed, her voice clear and deep, "This war is between you and me. Let my men go".

He doesn't answer as his thoughts are in violent disarray.

Rey wasn't aware it was physically possible for a man to have four different trains of thoughts at the same time.

Now she seriously suspects he lost it completely – and mentally – since the Throne Room.

His eyes are feverish like he's on a bad acid trip. She heard the Empire used hallucinogenic drugs to enhance the influence of the Dark Side – maybe he went overboard with something?

Because those eyes are just deeply demented.

They lock on her renewed, double-sided blade and she's now looking into two battering rams from Crait, only miniaturized so they might fit in his pupils.

But then they slide across the plasma beam and across the hilt to settle on the ring – his mother's bipartite blue ring, a token she received from Leia on her death bed. And something snaps. It lasts for no more than few seconds, but to Rey, the time seems to hold to a standstill.

"Very well". He says and flexes, deactivating the hilt.

"What?" She heard herself asking in dismay.

"What?!" She heard the Resistance and even Poe, hovering above them in the ship she has stolen from Snoke. (They had an audio connection throughout).

" _Me'ven_ "?! She hears the Nite Owls.

She meant a duel; he meant something altogether different.

"I will spare this ship", he says matter-of-factly, with that strange amalgam of softness and threat in his voice. "I will spare its crew. You proceed to Dagobah…"

Rey shudders. They were compromised already. The First Order could've evaporated the whole base while they were here, stuck in a desperate fight.

"… or whatever planet you rebel scum now inhabit".

Ah, there it is. The true, elitist, arrogant Kylo Ren – he looks at Rey with a hardened gaze now.

"The Jedi comes with us as a hostage", he says coldly.

Poe's voice breaks through the other side.

"You are now officially breaking the code of law regarding the merchant and civilian ships no. 357 subsection 8…" Poe says, and then comes to a hold. There is a heavy sigh that the audio device transmits too consistently.

"Listen, _pal_ ", he can barely contain a growl. "I need to talk to Rey… to Jedi. Anything you try is not sanctioned by the Resistance and by the Republic, so everything I heard is invalid. It didn't happen. I didn't hear it – static in the communications. Zero – a glitch in the system – understood"?

 _Poe._

She holds her breath for a moment and in that dead silence, she can practically hear her own sweat dripping on the metal floor. He has that expression that could all at once mean he's calculating how to scorch them all, himself included; how to Force choke the pestering pilot; how to fight with her and her only or drag her from that ship without any further notice.

But he again flexes and makes a gesture of dismissal with his hand. Just an imperial flick of a wrist and it is downright insulting.

The Nite Owls are cursing in low voices, but stand at ease now. Perplexed, annoyed, angry even – but then again, they always have a plan B. And this plan B is practically shoveled down their throats.

Anger and fear boil in her head as she stalks away from the corridor, fearing they might just continue their bloody pyre while she is gone. It feels surreal – all of it.

She goes back to the control room.

Poe is an explosion.

"What was that? Are you seriously considering negotiating with that… thing? Gods, Rey!"

"I didn't expect this to happen", she said. "I appealed to his code of honor. Even the Sith and the Ren have it. I expected him to fight me, not try to arrest me".

"That is just incredibly stupid", he shouts back at her. "You Jedi are not all just crazy, but also incredibly stupid. We had the plan – let them pull you, storm the ship, keep Ren busy until everyone is gone and hold on until I disable them".

"Didn't you hear what he just said?" she retorted, unfaltered by his anger. "Dagobah is already busted. I was against the planet in the first place. There is a dark nexus there and he knows all the stories, they're imprinted in his mind since his birth. He felt us there, damn it. We probably reeked from across the galaxy to him, but you didn't care to listen to the mad Jedi, so the mad Jedi has to deal with the aftermath on this bloody ship"!

Rey wasn't aware she had the capacity of so many expletives and shudders at the notion that the whole corridor can hear their marital dispute.

Poe is on the other side, exasperated. He wanted to fight – he needed to fight so badly. He goes with his fingers through his thick, curly mane. He touches his mother's wedding band on his chest, instinctively. He reaches out for that place when he's deeply troubled – and that's not very often.

 _Breathe._ This is no vocabulary of a Jedi.

"Poe", she calms down and lowers her voice. "I can't let him slaughter all those people".

"So you'll just serve yourself to him on a plate?" he barks at her, but there is pain in his voice. "Remember what I told you. I didn't tell you that to make you feel better. I meant it – you are the Light of this movement. Without you, everything falls apart".

"And with me fighting here, many of these men shall perish", she almost cries that one out.

 _Damn it, Poe._

"Dagobah is one hyper-jump away from here. One order from him and everything falls apart. What sort of Light am I if everyone around me is dead?"

Her point is poignant. She is so right and it makes him go crazy.

"Rey", he tries to reason with her in an insane situation. "I can make a shock-attack while they're still on hold. Kay dispatched the distress signal to Dagobah – they're evacuating as we speak. We'll scatter around. We were in bigger ordeals than this one".

Rey shakes her head and tenses. There is some stirring in the corridor. The Nite Owls – disgruntled, perplexed. This goes way above their heads. This goes way above her head too.

"Resistance had 10.000 followers then. We don't even know who's in this alliance anymore. Poe, you're the Council now", she says softly. "Tell them I'll make a truce with Kylo Ren. Tell them I'll buy them some time; that I'll persuade him to stop hunting down the Resistance and all its sympathizers, at least for now. He is many things, but I don't think he wants to kill me. Either way, when a Jedi dies, the Light doesn't die with him".

"Fuck your Jedi ways", Poe reduces himself to expletives. "What can you expect from a man who used his own mother's funeral for his own political agenda"?

And that's exactly what happened – they gathered on Dagobah so they might organize a dignified funeral. Had they not been so loyal to the memory of the late General Organa, they'd probably scatter around and remain undetected. But practicality was never Resistance's strong suit.

"There is no other way, Poe", she says and puts her rucksack on. She needs her stuff. She's going away for some time. "I would be the first to pierce his heart, but it would only lead to many more deaths. I cannot stand it. She couldn't stand it anymore".

"Leia was perfectly aware what we're up against, what are the risks and what he has become", Poe growls, but his growl turns to a wail. "Rey, please, do not go there".

"Leia never imposed that risk on anyone else but herself", Rey says. "I'm the commanding officer on this ship, you appointed me. And under the code of law no. 678, section 0-9, I am in charge of making decisions like these".

She realizes he scrambles to remember what paragraph was that exactly, so she makes it simple.

"I won't let all these people die because of some misguided cause. There is no Resistance if we're all corpses".

 _Damn it, girl. Why are you so unnaturally intelligent? Why did I give you the credentials? Why have I let you read the bloody code of law no one even upholds to anymore?_

"Godspeed, Rebels", Rey says firmly and switches the panel off before he has time to protest.


	2. Chapter 2

The first time I actually become aware of Coruscant, I already read Elric of Melnibone and the semblance between Ymrrir, the Sleeping City, and Coruscant, compelled me completely. Perhaps just a subjective interpretation, but still.

And yes, although this fanfiction is way over the top, I still think the snobbish boy in Ben Solo would really both love and hate Amilyn Holdo. He's both into and not into strong and elegant women. Oh, the torment of it all.

* * *

" _Why should their pain produce such marvelous beauty?_ He wonders. _Or is all beauty created through pain? Is that the secret of great art, both human and Melnibonen?_ "

 _They are a most depressed and depressing group, for they are all, you see, exiles or refugees or travelers between the worlds who lost their way and never found it again._ _No-one lives in Ameeron by choice." "A veritable City of the Damned." "As the poet might remark, aye." Rackhir offered Elric a sardonic wink. "But I sometimes think all cities are that."_

Michael Moorcock, _Elric of Melnibone & The Sleeping Sorceress._

* * *

She is locked on "Conquistador", a Procurator class II ship. Disarmed, and then placed on a rotating chair near his commanding seat. The First Order personnel, including one blue pigmented and humanoid alien whose species she never saw before, glide across the polished black floor effortlessly, like in a well practiced ballet routine. (The blue alien is full of disdain, but conceals it admirably).

Ren inspects the saber for a moment, mixing both awe and scorn on his face. Only he can summon two complete opposites like that. His upper lip curls up a bit.

 _Luke._

She'd like to punch that deviant grimace off of his face and he knows it. She'd actually like to mutilate that whole conflicted face until it's reduced to a smudge on the opposite wall. She'd finish the job before the whole squadron comes peeling her off from the mishmash that was once that damn and handsome face.

 _Oy!_

He darts a glance on her. Not the battering ram from Crait anymore – it's more of a charcoal thrown over dying ember.

 _Breathe._

The urge to wreak havoc on his skull is so compelling that she has to find a way to distract herself, and fast.

What about their destination?

The city beneath them is ancient, a sort of decadent and decaying beauty. Sky-scrappers soaring high, almost touching the belly of the First Order ship. It shimmers in the translucent fog. Rey has never seen anything like it and is awe-struck for a moment.

The city murmurs. She could feel it from the orbit. It is a peculiar place, a capital place, an elitist place – so becoming of him. There are both sides of the Force swirling strongly within it, but there is more evil there than Light.

Truly, so becoming of him.

However, she was a scavenger. She could survive on a bare minimum. And this city, as far as Light was concerned, was certainly not a bare minimum.

She focuses.

Her heightened hearing picks up the murmurs of the city beneath.

 _Coruscant_ , a soft voice – her voice – whispers in her head.

But the whisper is interrupted with roaring alarms from the First Order propaganda channels everywhere in the city bellow.

"Citizens! This is a historical moment! The criminals once known as the Resistance are crushed by the efforts of our glorious L…"

 _Enough_ , she screams inside of her head, muffling the deafening sound and barely avoiding the urge to plug her ears with her hands.

The ship descends on an impossibly high landing dock.

"Come", he gestures at her.

She despises being told what to do. Ever since Unkar and Jakku. And above all, she shivers at the gesture he makes: both soft and threatening; demanding and pleading all at once. If he had said "Please" at the end of that sentence, she'd strike him down without an afterthought and let everything – Resistance included – go down in the blaze of glory and fire. But he doesn't – he is surrounded by his strongest allies and closest enemies.

"So no handcuffs this time?" She snarls back at him.

 _What does a man's gray matter taste like?_

His face is unreadable. Is he amused? Offended?

"Would it stop you?" He asks.

She is startled with the dark humor in his voice.

She shakes her head.

 _No._

 _Good._

* * *

They will sign a treaty proclaiming the universal inter-galactic truce. All attacks against the Resistance cease immediately. All Resistance sympathizers will no longer be persecuted. All Resistance members and sympathizers locked and rotting away in harsh prisons of the First Order will be released and their medical needs will be covered.

He's generous – generous indeed. Rey doesn't know what to think of it. Nothing in this galaxy comes for free.

Her eyes slowly slide down the data-pad. And of course, there it is: in case any of the Resistance members or affiliates tries a guerilla attack against the First Order, the treaty will be deemed invalid and all hostilities continue.

It's printed in thick red, deep red, blood dripping red – a crude forewarning. The letters flicker in front of her on her data-pad.

 _Keep an eye on Mandalorians._

She is given her own personal chambers, but there is really nothing remotely personal about them. The inside of her AT-AT could fit into this apartment at least five times over. She'd be more grateful for a common prison cell, because this whole compound echoes the Throne Room. There are lots of gold and red and there is also that unsettling feeling of a boudoir, if that's the correct term?

If this is the reflection of the inner workings of his brain, she understands the necessity for a narcotic.

 _Gods of galaxy_ , she murmurs. _What did I get myself into?_

The high windows overlook the glistening city. Whatever she might think about the First Order, they have their esthetics all planned out.

Rey rotates Leia's ring on her finger. She reaches out for it when she's troubled. She finds the ring soothing, now even more than ever.

The nameless ceremonial droid breaks her out from her unsettled thoughts.

There is a dress on that monster of a bed.

 _I should wear this?_

"Patch me through to the… Supreme Leader", she commands the droid, trying to sound business-like. But he seemingly has no algorithm to support this.

Still, there is no mention of the Force bond in the treaty (why, of course).

So she reaches out with her mind to his. He is so close now that the bond comes almost completely effortlessly.

 _Ren._

He is in the middle of a war gathering. He has his back facing her. He is sitting, surrounded with his generals. Across his shoulder, she sees an elaborate map. He is inspecting the Resistance hide-outs. Ah, so that's how the resumed hostilities fit in with his plan. They're now standing naked before him.

He is aware of the intrusion and leans slightly forwards to conceal the greater part of the holographic map – the advantages of broad shoulders are apparently infinite.

 _What do you want?_

She gathers her strength. It's awkward. It's downright bizarre. (Jedi are truly mad.) She comes almost between him and the map slowly to absorb the most of it, but he doesn't look back at her.

 _You can't expect me to wear this. There is nothing of this in the treaty._

She can feel him struggling to understand what she's talking about. Eyes on the map, eyes going darting at her in her same clothes: he is drinking a strong brew of coffee and there is new clarity to him but nervousness too. Force pushes back at her a bit, and then he realizes.

 _Just let the droid help you with it. You can't go out in those mock-Jedi rags. You have to respect the other side. That is the part of the treaty._

Rey's ears are burning. This is exactly something a 19-year old wants to hear.

" _The dress_ ", she says it out loud to the emptiness of her room and growls mockingly at every syllable. "That dress, if I remember correctly, _Supreme Leader_ , is almost a complete replica of late admiral Holdo's dress. So pray, tell me. What sort of respect are we actually talking about here? I am but a simple scavenger from Jakku, but on my home planet, it's usually quid pro quo – I give something, and then I receive the equal measure in return".

That wasn't actually the truth, but what does this snob know about portion sizes on Jakku?

He replies with a sort of amusement in his voice. And with a sort of strange softness permeating from him – that is the exact moment she notices the freckles. Gods of the galaxy, the freckles of the Supreme Leader – bloody nebular galaxies charted on his pale face.

 _Focus._

 _I remember Admiral Holdo. She was a woman of great taste despite some incurable whimsies in her. For instance, her fling with the Resistance, and her hair. But other than that, Amilyn was a trend-setter. Look around you. Half of the ladies of Coruscant wear similar things._

Is he actually lecturing her on fashion in this moment? Is he really that insane?

He sighs, but there is a taunting darkness lurking under his breath. Rey memorizes every single base he pinpointed and every single planet: Endor 2, Tatooine, Kashyyyk, Sullust, the miserable place called Dagobah, even Naboo.

 _It's just fabric, Jedi. You don't adhere to things material or immaterial, so why do you care?_

Rey saw enough – and heard too much.

She waves with her hand – dismisses him this time, practically – and the bond breaks.

 _It's just fabric._

It's just thin, delicate fabric between you and me.

Negligible stuff. A cobweb of nothing.

* * *

She is deeply tempted to tear the bloody fabric apart, but what's the use?

She breaks the ceremonial droid instead.

She'll re-assemble it later and report it as a mechanical malfunction. A skillful engineer she is still.

She has to find something to balance this perversion out, so she scavenges through that walk-in wardrobe, the size of her AT-AT. But her Jedi intuition is drawn to a low energy hum from one of the drawers. She activates it and the drawer automatically pulls out – the thin piece of metal is a holder for jewelry on velvet surface.

Pair of earrings – rich, intricate, with a good feeling about them – strong presence of the Light Side: her lips expand into a smile.


	3. Chapter 3

This is a chapter dedicated to Poe – poor lad. He just wants to live like a poet, and without thinking most of the time – which is a good thing considering you stand near a man who wants you dead and can read your mind.

 _Let's live like the light that kills  
and let's as silence,_

 _Because Whirl's after all:  
(after me) love, and after you._

E. E. Cummings, _Let's live suddenly without thinking._

* * *

She is beautiful, but she almost looks like a young, more tamed version of Holdo. Nothing wrong with it, except the whole context is just demented and downright insulting.

Perhaps in his deviant mind, all of them have their particular roles within the system he wants to build – this is Holdo, only serving the First Order.

(Poe is under a distinct impression him and Finn are the only ones left outside that First Order orgy either way – no place for a Stormtrooper deflector and General of the Rebel Scum.)

And where did he get that insane idea from, if there is any sort of system to his madness?

He is now quick to remember – Amilyn Holdo was a friend of his mother's. He must've seen her; he might've even had his first boy's erections to her. Poe noticed this _thing_ has a thing for strong women. Damn it, his perversion must be mentally infective.

„What on planet are you wearing"?

He'd embrace her fiercely, but the bucket heads swarming around them act as a major turn off.

„I have no idea and frankly, I try to forget it ever happened".

But then she embraces him and holds him for a long time that is never long enough.

"Wait for me", she whispers to his ear and the dark hair there vibrates under her warm and scented breath. "I have something to give you - but not now. Later - when this whole madness is over. They won't pay that much attention".

They distance themselves from each other. He cannot see him, but by the looks of Rey - annoyed and half-anxious - she fears he sees them from some high-tower carved in single obsidian stone or something.

She takes his hand into hers and leads him like a child.

 _Damn it._

* * *

They are escorted to a vast chamber, all carved in dark grey marble, walls covered with long and pompous banners of the First Order.

Only a middle-sized banner attached to the great table set for negotiations harbors the symbol of the Resistance with the Jedi sigil within it: wings hugging wings, a bright star buried in the heart of the Rebellion.

She makes him feel like a poet – he'd conceal her in his own heart just like that.

But he frowns as he deliberates on the disproportion between the First Order flags and theirs.

 _Could they find an even smaller rag? A complimentary hotel towel? A cocktail-sized paper umbrella, perhaps?_

But to his partial relief, it still it oozes such strength, hope, and compassion in stark contrast to the decadent opulence of the First Order. Just like her – a girl lost among these beasts.

Her delicate long powdery cloak strangely mirrors his heavy, black Darth Vader cosplay.

Poe underestimated the weariness of his men and overestimated their strength. He wanted to go ballistic at the Council and kick the presiding right in the crotch but then he remembered: he was presiding. He was only promoted days ago and that title didn't sit with him from the beginning.

So he resigned from his position. He doesn't want to have any part of it.

But then he remembers again he'll be leaving her alone in the middle of "negotiations", so he volunteers for the position again.

And now he's stuck here, with her, with these monsters, dancing to the tune of their music. He must not think much – Kylo Ren ignores him, but he knows what he's capable of. Reading his mind. Penetrating the deepest, darkest fears and most embarrassing secrets buried inside his skull. But Force help him, he would gladly rip his skull open and eat from it.

He notices his friend Hux is nowhere to be seen. He grins. He might be alive, but only barely. Stuck somewhere in the outer regions of Mandalore system, so he's heard. It will take a long time before someone tracks him down and brings him home.

The sign in begins. The Supreme Leader makes a quick over-sized scribble, but it actually looks ancient and somehow calligraphic. Rey is simply „Rey". It's almost touching. Given the chance, he'd gladly turn her into Rey Dameron – that sounds very right. He'd forgive her this spell of insanity.

Poe leaves the stamp of the Resistance and his crude signature near it.

Poe also has a quick sniff of her hair as he leans forward to sign the treaty. Her hair is picked up high in a small bun. She wears elaborate earrings that dangle on both sides of her delicate neck. The dress covers her to her ankles, but her shoulders are revealed, showing her strong stature and the hint of that flesh wound she acquired on the „Supremacy".

All the weight of the galaxy on those tiny shoulders, Poe thinks and thinks again.

She definitely makes him feel like a poet.

* * *

"Poe", she takes him to the side in the commotion that ensues after the signing of that accursed treaty.

His hand still burns where that embroidered black pen was. He is such a Vader fan-boy. Surprise he didn't let the pen be engraved with the small replica of Vader's helmet on top.

"The disc", she whispers and her small hand is in the pocket of his leather jacket.

 _0k._

"The maps of the First Order", she whispers still and it's strangely enticing, the whole subject and the whole situation considered. "The plans of their movements, the military exercises schedules, their spies and their uncertain allies, people that can be turned to our cause... I memorized it all and recorded it there".

Poe can't help himself but grin.

"For the Rebellion", he whispers and shakes her hand.

"For the Rebellion", she returns with one of her brightest smiles.

A bright star buried within the wings of the Resistance - very becoming, indeed.


	4. Chapter 4

This chapter is inspired greatly by **uselessenglishmajor** and **Silmarilion279** (uselessenglishmajor, please consider changing your username - please? Because it's really not useless ;)). Great imagery, great writing, I was blown away more times than I can count and it still reverberates.

I always wondered what it would be like to put Padme and Rey in the same room – both women resembling each other both physically and mentally. But one will undo what the other has done, even if unwillingly (hint: their story arcs are very similar, only in reversed; and even their costumes mirror each other).

I know her ghost is at peace since Anakin's redemption, but let's say this is an energy signature – a trace of her existence that communicates to Rey and Rey only, recognizing a similar sort of soul.

Bonus: fashion became a thing in TLJ, not just mindless extravaganza, but also a statement and a supplement to the story. I wanted to play with that motive in this story.

* * *

This place weighs heavily on her. She thought she could live on what Light is left here, but it is more difficult than she expected. Everything is more difficult than she expected.

She simply ignores the stares of the First Order officers, the snickering of the decadent aristocracy, the murmurs of the weapon dealers. She just stalks away from all of them and from the Supreme Leader, who says nothing to her.

And that is good. Her urge to strike him down where he stands is still there, and the Resistance representatives are still on the landing dock. Saying goodbye to Poe hit her harder than she thought, but still she finds some comfort in the fact that she managed to pass him the information unnoticed.

Rain falls on the outside. The city lights ignite and it's like myriad of fireflies against the blurred glass. The rain is so dense and persistent that it looks like a deluge, like the whole planet would be swallowed up until the morning.

She finds strange comfort in that thought. It is this place, it is this situation – they both fill her up with unprecedented melancholy.

Her earrings pull on her earlobes like lead. She takes them off with a sigh of relief. She glances over them quickly. She wasn't the first one to wear them, most definitely. But whoever wore them wasn't on the Dark Side of the Force.

She places them neatly on the small table near the window sill, where she's sitting. She rolls Leia's ring around her finger and examines it again. Two dark blue stones glisten gently, undisturbed by this place, undisturbed by what has happened.

It gives her some comfort, again.

* * *

 _Come with me._

The gentle voice at the edge of audibility wakes her up from her sleep. She fell asleep fully dressed, her powdery gown spilled around her like warm liquid.

It isn't a hallucination. It isn't Luke's voice. It isn't his voice. He's asleep, but the sleep is a restless one. She can feel it.

Rey tenses. She knew this place is full of whispers, full of secrets and full of past.

 _Come. Let me show you._

She stands up and follows the voice through that vast labyrinth that is her chamber. It is still raining. The First Order reinforced curfew, so it is dead silence outside. Rey switches on the light and blinks. The apartment is empty, as she expected. This voice isn't from this world, isn't from this reality.

 _Come. Don't be afraid._

 _I am not afraid._

Rey follows the voice to the anteroom with high windows. In the dim twilight, she first sees nothing. There is nothing. But as her vision accommodates, a fragile figure appears on the far right of the window, half-concealed in shadows.

That's where she sat that evening. That's where she left the earrings.

 _Come closer._

 _Who are you?_

She comes nearer to that shadow, but she has no fear. The figure is not intimidating at all, but soft-spoken and delicate. That same sadness she felt from the earrings radiates from that small-statured and frail young woman.

As Rey comes even nearer, she sees her exquisite features. Her perfectly oval face and her almond shaped eyes, slightly tilted upwards on the edges. Her full and perfectly shaped lips. Her royal robes overflowing from both her sides and her thick long hair almost reaching her narrow waist.

Rey has never seen a woman as beautiful as her.

But as her eyes wander off, she notices the young woman's belly is swollen. There is something inside – she is bearing twins. She smiles at Rey and melancholy permeates every single atom of her being. Something tragic has happened. Has she lost her children? Has she died in childbirth?

The phantom seems aware of her unspoken thoughts and of her sadness, but says nothing. She looks down in anguish and caresses her belly.

 _He is not coming back._

Rey is startled. The vision is strong, but the meaning escapes her. She shudders. She feels strong compassion to the woman who starts to feel strangely close and familiar. Yet Rey knows it is impossible.

 _Who is not coming back? Who are you waiting for?_

The beautiful sad princess looks at Rey again with her almond eyes, shaded under long, silky eyelashes. She was crying. She shook her head.

 _He is not coming back._

And as Rey reaches out with her hand to touch the apparition, to make it stronger with the Force, the spirit is already gone.

* * *

The intercom behind her resounds like a thunder.

„Let me in".

He inspects the room intently.

Rey recoils from him.

„Who were you talking to"? He demands.

„A ghost", she thinks the honesty is the best policy.

„What"?! He hisses back at her.

Rey pierces him with her eyes.

„There was a young woman living here. Someone left her and wasn't coming back – someone very close to her heart", Rey answered firmly. „She was attached to those things... her sadness is overwhelming, like a river. I think she died at childbirth".

He is no longer roaming around like an agitated beast and stops in front of her. His nostrils widen.

She looks up at him and sees nothing of Ben Solo. Only Kylo Ren.

It makes her position much simpler.

„You know whom those earrings belonged to", she utters.

He twitches and gazes down on her, but says nothing.

„Whom have they belonged to"?

He hisses.

„They belonged to Princess Padme Amidala Naberrie of the Old Republic".

The name means nothing to her, but she senses it means a lot to him.

Her woeful lack of knowledge evidently frustrates him.

„She was Leia Organa's mother".


	5. Chapter 5

Kylo Ren asks Rey to show him his mother's resting place on Dagobah through the Force bond.

Rey realizes he is the captive of his own position.

* * *

"Take it", he throws a Bacta patch her way.

She looks genuinely perplexed.

"Why?"

"Your shoulder… your wound".

Her eyes harden.

"It's healed", she retorts and turns her attention from him to history book she's reading, covering the history of the Old Republic and probably some parts of his genealogy too.

"I have to see it", he persists.

 _What?_

"Her resting place", he continues with an accusatory tone. "I need to see where you've buried her".

She is startled. _Why? Why do you need my help? Go there by yourself. You're the Supreme Leader now. All the gates are open to you._

 _No_ , he says. _I need to see it._

Ah – that's the thing. He's too far gone. The Light blinds him, hurts him. He needs a guide. And he is a prisoner of his position – he can't just storm off to Dagobah whenever he sees fit.

But she doesn't gloat over it. She thinks about Padme's words, she remembers her immense sadness and the imminence of loss. He is not coming back. Anakin is not coming back.

He is too far gone.

She turns to him, sitting at her oversized desk covered with data-pads and history books. She left the Jedi texts with the Resistance for safe-keeping: clever girl. Anyway, there is nothing in those books that she already doesn't possess.

She is now deeply skeptical of him ever turning: but the vision she had was so powerful and felt so true that she had trouble believing it was all just Snoke's mind trick.

She can't deny him this rare human demand.

"May I?" he clears his throat as he reaches out with his gloved hand to her.

She shakes her head.

 _Take them off._

It is his turn to be startled. But he complies. There is something in her that makes her hard to resist.

He peels the glove slowly, tensing as if he expected he'll tear his skin along with it.

He reaches again, this time even more slowly. Again, she feels so real, and so present. Her warm skin radiates not just mere thermal energy, but so much more: the compassion, the light, the hope and strength. Every single bundle of nerve in him goes roaring with vibrant and pure energy.

Rey is again perplexed by how easily this comes to them and how naturally it feels. The darkness is subdued – perhaps it's just its cunning tactics, but for a brief moment, she doesn't care. She feels self-assure and strong.

And he feels – he feels – he feels like Ben, like his old self again. The image is so clear and so beautiful that it almost makes her cry. She knows he can sense it too, but he doesn't recoil. He doesn't stalk off. He is steady, even if slightly timid.

 _Show me._

She leads him to the past memories, to Dagobah. She leads him by his hand and leaves him at his mother's pyre, not daring to look at his expression. Let him have it. Perhaps – perhaps – he'll turn. He'll turn to her with a silent supplication. All he needs is to say the words, and she'll turn this whole depressive, decadent city upside down.

Steal a ship. Steal the sabers.

Run away with him. Leave everything behind. Hide him until he's steadfast and healed. Until Council accepts it all. Then fight with him on her side until the First Order finally falls down.

The fantasy is so alluring to her that she dwells on it for much longer and goes in much deeper than she intended. The bipartite ring on her hand whispers and glistens. It feels warm and reassuring.

 _You'd do that with me?_

She snaps out of her daydreaming. Was she so loud and so conspicuous?

But she replies with no hesitation and no after-thought.

 _Yes._

He is now standing in front of the make-shift shrine built for his mother's ashes. His back faces Rey – he's cloaked in anguish and regret. But he wants his answer.

 _Why did you refuse me before then?_

 _I'm no murderer_ , she replies truly and openly. _You can't kill the past. You can only make peace with it._

He shudders with rage – old Kylo Ren's mindless fit of rage it is.

 _Spoken like a true Jedi_ , he snaps at her.

The bond is broken. She is sitting behind her desk still. He punches the intercom and storms off from her quarters.


	6. Chapter 6

Rey kicks some ass here, to put it politely. I'm not sure how well this action sequence flows, but in the end, she makes a poignant point and sends a powerful Jedi message to a very anti-Jedi world.

Also, again shout out to **uselessenglishmajor** and **Silmarilion279**. Truly, what happened to Coruscant after the New Republic has fallen? How has the society changed since the First Order took hold of the city? Those are really very important and interesting points. I'd be over the moon if Ep. IX showed us more of this city-planet.

* * *

"Your presence is requested by the Supreme Leader", the ceremonial droid recites in a flat, unpleasant tone.

"What? Where"? She is perplexed, panting after series of planks followed by series of push-ups, sweat dripping back and forth.

"Training facilities, sector 5-B", droid says.

He stormed off yesterday. She anticipated some kind of repercussion, but nothing happened. Only silence.

And now this.

Had he spied on her? Because if he did, that is just not in that damn treaty.

She changes her clothes: no point of showing her weakness to the world. She trains, but breaks no sweat. She is one with the Force, and the Force is with her – no physical strain, just soft murmur of that ancient energy source.

She wears tan pants and shirt that resembles the First Order officers. _At least they are not black,_ she thinks. She binds her hair tightly to her head in a high bun. Somehow, she is left with an unnerving feeling she is being morphed into a dark apprentice. That impression makes her shudder, but she doesn't have the time to ponder. He awaits her. And she is actually eager to spar with him again, having lost the opportunity to crack open his skull.

 _Breathe._

She opens the door – the entourage. Stormtroopers. Rey finds them somehow more tolerable than an average First Order Officer, probably under Finn's influence. There are people underneath, conflicted and trapped in their destinies like Finn, like her, like Ben…

It is this place again. Melancholy hitting like a wayward planet against the planet.

She will behave. She will not make any Jedi mischief. She feels acutely he wants her to.

 _Come on, scavenger. Make a mistake. Tug the thread too violently. Break the treaty apart._

The door opens. She flinches a bit. Praetorians. Another contingent. Why, of course. Why would the eight they've slain be the only ones in the existence? Do they know? Are they Force sensitive?

But the creatures are mum and she suspects yet again they're not human at all.

"They have to learn to protect their Supreme Leader better", he snarls behind her.

For a split second, she thinks this is not a training session – this is a downright execution. Praetorians and Kylo Ren are not the only ones in that room – there are high-ranking First Order officers and what she suspects are the scions of the Coruscant aristocracy. And as she observes all these potential jurors and judges with a swift glance, she makes a mental note that he was right about the dresses – there are women there, probably wives of the war barons and the upper classes. Concubinate – small arrows of jealousy hitting the back of her neck here and there. Scrutiny. This is something new.

This is a spectacle.

But it isn't directed against her, although there is the air of disdain and fear in the room.

You do not fear those you know you'll execute.

"Come", he says and makes a downright royal gesture. He doesn't touch her, but he makes a wide move with his gloved hand.

Rey fights the urge to look confused.

 _Breathe._

"We shall re-enact what has happened in the Throne Room", he says matter-of-factly, picking up a training sword from one of the droids. He inspects one and passes it on to her. It is the perfect replica of Luke's saber, only harmless, equipped with millions of sensors.

She swings it around not so much to feel its weight and versatility, but for all those inquisitive eyes around her that annoy her. She lets it make a whipping sound in the air and relishes in that forewarning. One of the women had an affair with him. She really didn't need to know that, but now it's stuck in her brain. Some of them covet him for whatever reasons, and it's not all about power, it's also about sex, just raw pleasure and lustful inquisitiveness. It sends some sort of a new, angry feeling up her spine.

 _What has happened in the Throne Room?_

 _Play along, Rey._

He picks the sword that resembles his own saber the most.

"Not precisely, of course: but I want you not to spare these men, or me. They are instructed to hit you like an enemy that you _were_. We talked about it. I want your rage and your revenge again, Rey".

They are sipping amber-colored drink from exquisite crystal glasses – this is really just a distraction for them, something for the decadent masses.

 _They want me dead. This officer thinks of Court Marshall, war crimes tribunal for me. What a joke - ._

 _They are nothing. Listen to me. You used the Jedi powers to hide in the Light. You had your Master's help in the Force. You killed Snoke. I tried to stop you, and we fought. Praetorians overwhelmed you for a moment, but you managed to kill 2, then 2 again, then we fought some more and before you killed off the last Praetorian, the "Supremacy" exploded. Part of the debris knocked me out. You were injured, you wanted to slay me, but you didn't have enough time. No one knows Luke's saber was torn into pieces. I kept it to myself. Do you understand?_

She nodded inside her mind, perplexed. Had she only had his help the way he portrays it…

 _Breathe._

 _I barely managed to defeat the 4 of them last time. Now I have 9 against me._

 _Don't be afraid. I'll help you. You'll see. But no one else will notice._

Her narrowing eyes now dart a glance at him. _"Don't be afraid". "Help"._ But he looks completely disinterested. He only wants to make a point. There are pro-Hux supporters here. The only reason they tolerate him is because they lost at least 2 millions in Starkiller Base, onboard the "Finalizer" and "Supremacy", weapons, guns, ammunitions, TIE fighters onboard those ships. Lot of their leadership has perished in Holdo's self-sacrificial attack. They are afraid, because they are tattered.

Her valiant, noble and precious Resistance hit them hard. That's what she can now hear and it fills her heart with pride and feral joy.

He doesn't disapprove that hint of ferociousness in her, although he smirks at her gentleness for the Resistance.

He gestures at his personnel to start recording the testimony of her enormous powers. They have to know that Jedi are a force to be reckoned with.

He attacks her viciously, not sparing her for a moment. But she uses all that power to her own advantage and lets him tumble over her. Her smaller stature is an advantage, not a fault – that is the way of the Jedi. Two Praetorians come rushing her way. They lock in a deadly match, but she feels they somehow falter. Not for more than one nanosecond, but it's enough for her to wiggle her way through them and hit the nearest one on the neck. The sensors detect the fatal blow. The Praetorian bows and leaves the arena. She has no time – Kylo Ren charges at her again. She stops him with the Force, his hand trembling as she tries to force the saber out of his hand. It's enough to stop him, but the other Praetorians circle her. She pulls Kylo Ren against them, sending them into a struggle not to harm their precious Supreme Leader. One of the Praetorians, however, hits his shoulder. Kylo Ren roars, perfectly imitating injured ego and knocks his own guard by himself.

Actually, he is fairly insulted how easily she swayed him this time. He actually again underestimated her powers – an error he won't make again.

 _How dare him, useless fool._

She cuts two Praetorians by lowering herself on the ground, again using her speed to her own advantage. She practically strangles one with his own whip, and hits the other one from below with one single fatal blow to the abdomen.

She uses his "corpse" as a shield against Kylo Ren. He pulls the poor creature from the arena with brutal force. The red armor yanks against the tiled floor, sending shards of the ceramics into the shocked public, breaking at least half of dozen of those accursed, luxurious glasses.

She grins at that spectacle, but it lasts for a nanosecond.

Four down, five more to go.

One of the Praetorians manages to grab hold of her from the behind, and she struggles again like that time. They don't fool around. Were this real, she wouldn't have survived until the end. She panics for a moment – it seemingly takes him forever to come to her aid.

 _Help me._

He loosens the man's grip with his Force only so much that she can escape on time, perfectly imitating the maneuver that sent her free the first time – letting go of the saber, and then catching it midair.

They all attack her now all at once. She feels his hot breath and his sweat. She has no idea how they didn't slay her from behind, because they are everywhere. The impossible geometry of that position somehow shields her, like a tent.

She roars, genuinely enraged and sends a Force blast that knocks out the Praetorians – only temporarily, again sending some of those ladies screaming in terror at the sight of tables overturned and glasses shattered. Stormtroopers' blasters vibrate and clatter like in a small earthquake.

She is left with Kylo Ren in an empty space. He doesn't falter. The Force can't sway him so easily. Their Forces clash and the walls of the facility tremble again inducing many more gasps in the audience, now even from some officers (exception are the Chiss) and from war barons, but it's all mild in comparison to what they've performed in the actual Throne Room.

Praetorians attack her eagerly, and she flings herself down to the ground, almost hitting the floor.

Luke's maneuver.

She cuts through one Praetorian's legs – he's mutilated.

Three more to go.

She spins upwards and observes a commotion – as the Praetorians charge at her, their Leader rushes between them to finish that Force duel they had. His speed and his impetuousness are his downfall. She shrieks and manages to pull the saber out of his hands. Now unarmed, he holds still for a moment and tries to bring the saber back, but an alarm roars.

It signals the exact moment in time when Holdo's ship hits the "Supremacy".

Kylo Ren leaves the arena with a hardened, unsatisfied gaze. Most of it is not an act – he scolds himself for underestimating her so.

She is left with only 3 Praetorians. She slays them, using the advantage of two powerful sabers. Luke's saber flies and cuts through 2 – Kylo Ren's saber is more volatile, more disobedient, so she decide to keep it to herself and cuts the last one.

Rey is left alone in the middle of the arena. Through her panting, she can hear the shock and the scandal that she produced. It all adds up so perfectly. In the end, she addresses the audience in a low, firm voice: "The debris hurt me".

She wanted to add: "…and flung Kylo Ren's saber from me. I had no time, I had to escape".

But that simply isn't true. She glares at the disgusted and terrified faces (save for Chiss again, they have a look resembling awe and contemplation on them) and is fed up with lies and deceit.

"I could've killed Kylo Ren. Just like I killed the Praetorians", she said in a low growl. "But I didn't".

Rey looks at him and wishes she had her beloved two-sided saber by her side right now. There is something in him – he tries to stop her, but he is still eager to hear what she has to say.

"It is not the Jedi way", she says with unprecedented honesty and serenity. "It is not the Jedi way to kill a man who cannot defend himself".

And with reverberating shock and gasps behind her back, she returns the sword to him.

Well, this is something they'll definitely teach their officers in the First Order military academies – the Jedi ways and what to make of them.

Even him swallows hard and gazes at her with blazing eyes. But then he turns on his heels and shuts her off completely. She finally has some time to catch her breath. Her knees and arms hurt. Actually, she aches all over.


	7. Chapter 7

This is Kylo Ren chapter. With a little bit of Ben Solo to peak in timidly from behind Kylo's cape, but it's mostly just Kylo. Warning: F words. Kylo is naughty.

Btw, I've noticed how in this and the next chapter their dynamics starts to resemble the dynamics of yet another fanfiction power-couple, i.e. Integra and Alucard. Didn't exactly plan it to turn out like that, but when it did - I grinned. Alucard style. Rey gets to be the unwilling master of the situation, with Kylo having the time of his life. Almost.

* * *

 _Gods, Rey, are you aware what you have just done?_

But she doesn't hear him – and even if she does, she'll think it was a dream. She is fast asleep, collapsed into the bed after that strain.

 _Do you know how subversive the truth sounds to those corrupted, weak-minded fools?_

 _Do you know how much awe-struck are the Chiss, otherwise as cold as stone and practically impossible to impress?_

 _Do you know how beautiful you looked and how difficult you made it for me to compose myself there?_

He was even prepared to forgive her the whole Jedi folly. Long time has passed since a Jedi master has held its lecture on Coruscant – he made sure for them to become the matter of past, a useless relic, something that instigates disdain and mockery in the high-bred.

But now he finds himself almost sneering at the sight of his former mistress squeamish and jealous with that little Jedi in her simple tan clothes. Her husband a powerful war-baron: it is wonder they both didn't climb into his bed. The limp husband, seeking benefits for his weapon trade, and her seeking the rise up on the social ladder plus a mindless, crude fuck as a welcoming bonus – spoilt and decadent, the whole lot of them.

He leaves them both wanting mainly because they serve no other purpose than to annoy him. Except for the crude fuck, that is.

Everything about her frustrates him to no end.

The fact that she's so ignorant and so insightful; the fact that she is so pure, and yet so sensual; the fact she has all that raw, untamed power and almost no style and no technique whatsoever; even her little signature is like a child's writing.

No surname, name only; like some kind of a strange animal.

He has that strange small animal in his palm now: but what can he do with it? It is of no use to him, except for…

Yes, the frustration is good. The frustration leads to anger. And anger leads to rage. And rage makes him even more powerful.

He meditates on that rage and it turns to pain. The crossbow wound burns on him again.

He focuses on that pain and invites the Dark Side in.

The whirlwind soars around him and inspects him, looking for a way in.

 _You abandoned me. How could you abandon me after all that transpired between us?_

His mind wanders again to the Throne Room. To the sight of her fighting, to the sight of her being wounded – he twitches, he tries to get to her. He tries to call her name. But she is cunning, and she is so brave. She has all the Jedi wisdom in her and so much more than that. It comes to her naturally.

He could see that wound peaking through the edge of her dress. He hoped so, and his calculation didn't fail him.

He could feel the skin was sore and brittle there. He could see they didn't have enough medical supplies to patch her up properly. And he could see she didn't bemoan this.

Strong little scavenger.

That wound transfixed him completely. He felt that pain acutely; he wanted to make it go away.

And then she left him, lying on the floor, weak and used.

He tensed in his meditation. The Dark Side purred contentedly against his ear.

He'd rip open that wound again with his tongue and his teeth, if needed.

He'll make her scream and squirm underneath him. But this time, he'd win. He won't underestimate her ever again. He'd suck that salt and pain from her wound and close the open rims of it with his mouth. He'd hold her until she's healed.

The vision is so intense that it makes him lose his focus. The Dark Side moans and wanes away from him, like an unsatisfied lover.

But when his own room dawns on him, gray, simple and uncluttered, he finds a pang of regret in him. A tug of compassion – he could never harm her. He'd rather pull his own heart from his chest than harm her.

Unless, of course, she asked him to.


	8. Chapter 8

The Bacta bandage is used still - Ben feels regret for having all those nasty and naughty thoughts about the shoulder wound. If I remember the Throne Room scene correctly, she gets grazed by a Praetorian with him losing focus in fight over it. Awe, sweet boy Ben. I imagined he would re-iterate that moment for many times during his sleepless nights post-Crait (with Luke's spirit to haunt him and slurp the blue milk all over his Vader memorabilia).

* * *

She collapsed on her bed fully clothed yesterday. When she wakes up, she is re-invigorated, but the clothes glue onto her with her dried sweat underneath. It reminds her of sandstorms on Jakku: but here she has at least an apparently endless source of running water, both warm and cold. No freedom – again, now even more enslaved than before, but she can at least wash herself clean. _Oh, the luxury_ , she thinks bitterly. But the warmth does feel good and welcoming. Only there she discovers her shoulder wound re-opened from the strain. She has some difficulty peeling the fabric off from the surface of her skin. Rey cleans the wound with pouring water. It stings, but somehow it feels empowering. Weird things come into her mind in this place.

Where is that Bacta bandage again?

She finds it among the books on her desk. Presses against the wound – it soothes her. It tingles pleasantly, cooling down the torn flesh.

 _Very good. They are now officially terrified of you._

Convenient good-morning rituals. She didn't even have her proper cup of wine-coffe yet.

(But at least she's dressed because otherwise it would be just… Hosnian system and molten lava come to her mind.)

Rey twitches.

 _They bought into that?_

 _Why wouldn't they? It looked terrifying. The Force has that effect on the plebs._

Plebs – such a bloody elitist he was.

 _They have never seen Jedi in action. They thought them extinct. They thought the stories of their powers exaggerated, a fairy tale for simple minded fools and slaves. Now they had to face with the fact that a mere girl, a Force user, can wreak so much havoc. I told them that their technology is nothing in comparison with the powers of the Dark Side, but they didn't listen._

 _Now I have their attention._

Wait, did she just help Kylo Ren strengthen his position? To hush the mutineers – to push them back into obedience?

Oh, he was a dark apprentice very much – all about intrigue, and deception, and lies.

 _If I have you, then I can have the rest of the galaxy as well._

His voice inside of her head was now something between a purr and a roar.

 _I'll send you the recording. You'll see for yourself. You looked just like you should have._

There was something unpleasantly intimate in this sentence – the recording, the compliments on her appearance.

 _I looked how – exactly?_

She couldn't tell exactly, but she was left under the impression he was grinning from across the halls and the corridors.

 _Like I've turned you, of course._

The ceremonial droid (the one that replaced the first one) comes in and plays her the disc containing that fight – the same raw material will be distributed to the bases and to the academies, for whole galaxy to see how feral a Jedi is. Her jaw drops – she doesn't recognize herself. If she'd stop the reproduction, she'd die of shame. There is something lascivious about the whole conundrum and about her shrieks and… Propaganda – the Resistance will see this. Finn, Poe, Chewbacca! Gods! The shame!

She crushes the disc with her foot and sends the ceremonial droid against the blast door. The door moans, the poor unsuspecting machine yelps almost as if it was alive and breaks into smithereens. The hard metal is scratched and the troopers rush in.

She regrets it in an instant, but as troopers retreat under his orders, she can sense that he is incredibly pleased. He doesn't feel alone, he doesn't feel abandoned.

It's really as closest to happiness she has ever sensed off of him.


	9. Chapter 9

This is a tawdry chapter with some beautiful lyrics of the unsuspecting E. E. Cummings to get us through to the other side. I can definitely see Kylo Ren reading to Rey _"...not even the rain has such small hands"._

Mature content throughout, of course.

 _I like my body when it is with your  
body. It is so quite new a thing.  
Muscles better and nerves more.  
i like your body. i like what it does,  
i like its hows. _

E. E. Cummings, _I like my body when it is with your._

* * *

He had the most blissful of all dreams in a very long time. He hasn't slept that peacefully ever since the Jedi academy.

And that was a whole life-time ago.

He was awaken in that dream to the sight of her in a glistening pearl-grey nightgown, her strong and lean back naked save for the hundreds of perfect pearls attached to a dozen of silver threads to keep the gown from falling down on her hips.

An intricate head-piece on her, falling to her shoulders, falling on his hand like soft rain – there was no point for her to wear something like that in bed, except to please him. He was a sucker for the Old Republic ever since he learned how to read. The Old Republic was the way to forge the Empire – it was always an ultimate feminine symbol in his mind, something to be conquered and subdued both by force and by seduction.

He was completely aware this is a dream. An illusion of his nerves, simple human needs satisfied in slumber – but he succumbed to that sweet illusion nevertheless.

They were kissing slowly, with her sitting on his lap, her silky night-gown moving slowly against his ribs. Warm. Light as a breeze. Butterflies. Soft dry leaves on coarse stone surface.

The cavity of her mouth is soft and scented and sensitive. He wants to explore that cave. He wants to explore all of her. He wants to absorb her slowly and to drink of her like from a royal chalice. She wears no jewelry on her neck – what a lucky occurrence. It's naked and it's vibrating with life. Sun-kissed skin. It invites him and he kisses her gently between her clavicles. And as he does, her breasts quicken. Small, firm and inviting and free. He cups them with his mouth, his hand still at the back of her neck. Now she arches and he is closer to her abdomen.

There is a pressure there, and he wants to liberate her from it.

He lets her slide from his lap and onto the sheets of silk.

He goes down and pulls her only slightly with him – she lets him lead her. She yields so completely and longingly that it almost makes him cry in her lap.

She trembles at the sensation of cold, slick fabric against her naked back. She twitches a bit – the pearls prick her slightly. He reaches out with his hand to support her against the unevenness of her pearl beads. His hand is rough and hot and its calluses grind against her soft back. Her chest arches. It sends her even further into that wonderful tension.

Her night-gown goes up around her waist. She was never touched there before. No man has touched her there before. It fills him with deep sense of peace and joy.

 _Mine._

He goes straight to that pearly cave, wet, scented and soft. The nub under his tongue twitches and reverberates with that pure energy of hers. His hand slides from her back to her buttocks and finds her perineum. He strokes her slowly and tenderly. He won't go deep. She can't handle it. He knows she can't. She told him so. She pleads with him in his mind.

She stretches her legs as far apart as she can, flexible little thing. He saw how quick and how flexible she is in the combat. This is similar, but in a way, so much more fulfilling. Nothing between him and her. They become one single being, her rhythm becoming his. His heart-beat lost in her own.

She pulls him back by his hair, that tug pushing him further to the edge. Demanding and desperate. Afraid.

 _Don't be afraid. I'll help you._

It hurts her to look at him. He is beautiful. He is perfect. She can't handle it. (He can allow this much vanity to himself – after all, it's his own personal dream and he doesn't need to make excuses for himself. Not that he makes any excuses otherwise, but still - that scavenger thinks him handsome. Thinks his face would make for a handsome bloody blot at the floor of the Procurator class ship.)

But her legs – she keeps them apart. She pants. She touches herself where he was, as if to inspect if she's still there. To try to re-enact what he did. But it isn't enough.

 _More._

 _More isn't enough._

 _Want you. Inside. Don't go._

He lowers himself slowly, trying not to scare her.

 _Look up. Look at me._

He pulls his pants down.

 _Don't look. Don't be afraid._

He leads her hand to his lower back.

 _Embrace me. Touch my hair again like you did before._

Her soft hands lock on him with trust and gratitude.

If they were on his member, he'd lost it. Fluttery things, small singing things, deadly things. She'd send him over the edge in a blink of an eye, completely unaware of the effect she has on him.

He lowers himself even more and in his sleep, he swallows hard. She is languid and lost in his hair, in the sensation of his back. She is inquisitive. She almost chirps.

 _Turn around_ , he says. That dress is meant for one position in particular and she complies, showing him her naked back with millions of tiny peaks where her pearls were. It loosens around her lean frame and under his hand, he feels her tender breasts tingling. He pulls her gently up, and follows the trail of a deep slit on her hip. He goes for her inner pearl again, where he has already found so much joy.

He goes tenderly. It's almost like a symphony, like a calling. He inspires her to move slowly with him, to just dance to the rhythm of his own hips. To feel the pulse of his manhood. To cradle it with her own softness. He opens her one petal at the time. He never quite understood the meaning of it before, but now it dawns on him.

 _It will sting._

He enters slowly and as gently as possible. The Balance, the Force, Jedi, Sith and the whole lot of them be damned. She is his home and his anchor, his little safe-haven. Only one thrust, and not quite until the end – she makes a stifled moan. He pulls back a bit, but she follows him and lets him take her again, this time deeper, but with the same gentleness. Her muscles tighten around him and she moans again. He finds her limit.

 _Don't go._

 _I won't._

He goes back with more force and until the end. Then gradually increases the speed and soon he hears her succulent flesh pounding against his firm thighs. He broke her tenderness.

She gasps, but her pain tolerance is higher than an average female's.

 _Am I too much?_

 _No. Yes. Don't stop._

The dream feels so good; he doesn't want to wake up. He usually springs immediately from his bed and takes a shower, finding the specters of the day easier to combat than those that haunt his nights.

But this is something altogether different. He wants to drown in that sleep and never come back.

His Princess, his Empress in her gown of silver and of pearls. Her crown still miraculously on her head, the long beaded threads mixing with the wet strands of her dark hair. Purring in his arms, detangling his wild hair. Observing his manhood without fear or embarrassment. They were one body, after all. Nothing to feel ashamed about.

He wakes up lying on his belly, unbuttoned, undone in sleep by his own hand.

Morning erection – like a boy of 15.

But for the first time in a long time, he allows himself the pleasure of being – languid. Not doing anything. Lying there in his amorphous bed, re-living that dream like a weak, stupid boy. Fantasizing about the best moments, about the whole damn thing – it makes him erect again. He can't have the war meeting in this state. A part of him searches for her, finds her locked in her rooms, drained by the exercise. She trashed the equipment. She let the rage in. She went straight to the darkness. A part of him wants to barge in and force himself on her, but the invisible thread that binds them finds this violence worse than the destruction of the whole Hosnian system. He relieves himself with his own hand, distancing himself from her in his mind. But the bond keeps bringing him back to the sight of her sleeping in this very moment. Can she hear his moans? He hopes to whatever higher jurisdiction to leave her oblivious. Not quite the imperial gown, but she wears a delicate fabric, ivory colored, laced on the chest and on her back. She lies on her belly and sleeps tightly, uninterruptedly, like any being of pure conscience. He hasn't had that in ages and it mesmerizes him to witness that.

Finally, he comes. He calls the sanitation droid to take it all with it. Just go straight to the washer. Wash it immediately. No one can see it.

He flings himself in the cold shower and stays there until his jaws start gnashing.


	10. Chapter 10

Oh, no, yet another one. Rey is lonely. The thing closest to intimacy was Ahch-to (she was cold and soaked to her skin there, and then her dad busted on her while she was skyping with her bf), then the Throne Room (where she was a victim of an attempted gang rape orchestrated by Snoke). She needs some comfort. And thanks to wonderful people of reddit, I only just realized how much of a SW fangirl Rey is. The way she expects of Luke Skywalker and Ben Solo/Skywalker to become heroes from the legends and save the day is just so endearing. Poor kid.

" _The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself."_  
― Oscar Wilde, _The Picture of Dorian Gray_

* * *

Rey wakes up pleasantly numb. Trashing the droid notwithstanding, she still had a small victory. The expression of fear in the First Order, them being disheveled after what Resistance did to them – it brought a smile back to her face. It will feed her with new enthusiasm for days. If only she could talk to Poe about it. He would appreciate it more than anyone else.

Perhaps she'll find a way later. A cunning Jedi she was, wasn't she? Because what she saw is pure gold.

For the first time, the room feels more like her own. The soft sun comes into the room, defying the pollution on the Coruscant. The air is almost opalescent. She allows moments of utter laziness, just lying there on her back, observing the dance of rays of light on the high ceiling, relishing in how powerful and how fearsome she was yesterday.

Her gown ruffles between her legs – it's a new sensation. She never wore something so decadent before. It doesn't feel natural, but precisely because of it, she wants to do something out of the ordinary, something she rarely did because it was never time, or place. Sometimes, back on Jakku, in her old AT-AT, when the loneliness was too much, the instinct provided shelter and comfort. But it was crude and it would end soon. She could never sacrifice her sleep to such things. She had to go back to work at the crack of dawn: no point wasting the precious sleep on quick releases that only made her content for a few minutes, and then throw her back again into the grinding routine, even deeper than before.

 _At night, desperate to sleep._

But here… in this strange place… it's different. She took the ring off, feeling it would be impious to leave it there while she is performing… stuff. She follows her instinct and reaches out for that place. First she rubs herself through the thin fabric of her night-gown and her panties. The fabric cresses and stimulates the inner of her thighs simultaneously. Strange imagery comes into her mind, but it isn't unpleasant.

She stains his night-gowns. Smiling absently, she goes back on her belly and rubs harder against the silky sheets. She taints his precious imperial sheets. She pulls her night-gown up and pushes her panties down, now tauntingly rubbing herself against that pretentious bed. She moans, imagining his utter dismay and disgust at the display. But she knows he would not be disgusted for too long. That thought pierces her mind and she almost stops, in terror and embarrassment. But she is too far gone now – her needs precede any convention right now. She continues and the warm crease she created in the mattress welcomes her. Almost like home. Safe. Distant from anyone and everyone. Her mind wanders. She imagines someone in that crease bellow her. Finn is sweet and tender, and Poe is handsome and coveted, but she can't summon their faces in that moment. It feels sacrilegious. She needs someone else. Someone who is already tainted, who wouldn't find her filth repugnant. Someone strong and warm and pleading and demanding – someone like him.

 _Ben Solo. Ben bleeding Skywalker Solo._

Freckles on him, his elvish features, and his unruly hair. She wants to hear him say: _"Please"_ again. But this time, under her terms.

 _Yield to me._

 _I will let you be my Darth Vader as long as I am the Jedi who saves you._

Gods in galaxy, was that her thinking? She stops and shudders. Instinctively, she dives into the soft mattress beneath her, like a scared animal searching shelter. She almost breaks the magic, feeling ashamed with her sacrilegious thoughts, but then she realizes there is no one with her in that room except for her. Vacuum where that bond was. Heroes sleeping in their dignified sleep and unaware of her – madness.

She punches the headboard to stop thinking so loudly and so tawdrily and the whole construction trembles. She will trash the bed. It will need a lot explaining. Or none.

But the build-up she already achieved comes swirling in back again, murmuring, pondering, testing her abilities.

How would it feel to ride him? Just to bridle him? To invite him in and let him see? Would it insult him? Would he think less of her? She is unsure of the former, but is safe with the latter – she is already nothing, lesser than less. Safe with him, because she is nothing… strange thoughts.

She is on the brink of summoning him into her mind and asking him. She almost wants him to barge in and see for himself.

It's good she finally comes. With the orgasm waning, she blushes with the sheer embarrassment. She scrambles quickly to her feet. She'll call the – third - droid to fetch these sheets and the gown later. Now, it would look too conspicuous. She was already afraid the whole compound reverberated with her muffled moans and with her dirty thoughts.

Quickly, she goes to the shower and scrubs herself for a long time. The Bacta bandage falls off and lands at her feet like dry leaf – leaving almost nothing behind. She rummages through the wardrobe but finds nothing beside the accursed tan wardrobe and floating imperial dresses. She picks one eventually. It is the lightest in color and the simplest.

It's of lightest gray color.


	11. Chapter 11

Isn't it?

 _"Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power."_

 _Oscar Wilde_

* * *

He is usually deeply unsettled on meetings like these. Often he has a sudden urge to jump to the window and stare and count the TIE fighters flying off (imagining he is in one of them) or roam through the dark recesses of his mind. Every time he sits, his knee starts jolting with nervous energy, infecting everyone around him with the same uneasiness.

But now, he sinks into his chair. His thoughts follow through every single one of their reports. He examines the faces of the men surrounding him and scrutinizes their secret thoughts and hidden desires. Who covets what? That one desires the position of his commanding officer. The other one wants the estates of his political enemy. The communication officer is more menial – he desires the wife of a rich local overlord and plots his assassination with her (how convenient). Everything is about power, unless it is sex – then it's about power. The general at his side wants the Jedi dead – he's afraid after what he's witnessed yesterday and now ponders if it is possible to kill someone so powerful (noted). The other general believes that Jedi is turned and thinks they managed to surpass the glory of the Empire (noted, too).

The Chiss officers, solemn and blue-skinned, are the easiest to read if there is any need to read them at all – they want incessant war and fulfillment of their ambitions.

His mind wanders off a little bit further.

Resistance? Those people are weary and battered. Many of them spent years in hiding, separated from their families – if they still have one. Many went back to their ruined homes, obliterated by civil war. The pilot – in hiding, messing around with Kanji Gang and other space junk smugglers (he now fully understands why he finds this particular rebel so repugnant). Is he planning a guerilla attack? No, he's buying medical supplies and agricultural machines. Should we arrest him for illegal activity? Then we should arrest half of the galaxy.

Is the base on Crait obliterated and dismantled? Yes. Let me see. Good.

Would that be all, officers?

Yes, Supreme Leader.

Good. To your posts.

He goes to that old place by the window and flexes just a bit. He somehow feels at peace. He was dead when he was exalted as Supreme Leader, but now his joints seem to be falling back into their place.

The day was unusually sunny and bright for Coruscant. Probably his weather engineers, struggling to decontaminate the surface of heavily polluted planet. Only thing they couldn't tame was that wind, supposed to purge the command center from toxic fumes – it was howling against the windows.

The command room overlooks a long cascade of turrets and platforms and lower floors and landing pods. It is a majestic view – Emperor made even a vast artificial lake for no other purpose than lavishness and meditation. It would reflect the night sky and many glistening sparks of space ships hyper-jumping. Now it reflected the bright-blue sky and smeared light clouds.

And as he meditated on the surface of that make-shift water, his eyes narrowed. His heart twitched. His fists clenched, gloves stretching to a breaking point.

There was a solitary figure firmly striding over the platform bellow and across the narrow bridge to the turret directly overlooking the lake.

She was clad in long floating dress.

Light grey, pearly grey.

Had he not seen the reactions of the droids and the officers passing by, he'd be certain he's seeing ghosts or hallucinating.

"Inform me about anything regarding the Resistance or the Mandalorian uprising", he ordered. "I'll be… in training center".

He descended to the platform and from there he went straight to the turret, officers avoiding him and bowing their heads.

It is layers upon layers of light-grey silk chiffon (he grew up surrounded with aristocracy – he knows). There is no elaborate head-piece, but there is a shawl as a natural extension of that dress that she wears on her head. (It's windy and he thinks he could see her shivering.)

Why is she not noticing his presence?

Ah, the lake – the little scavenger girl is still transfixed with great water.

But there is something else. She seems absent-minded, almost languid. Perhaps it's the aftermath of the duel, but she appears softer now than before.

He has conflicting feelings about her – there is a part of him that wants to embrace her and cover her with his cape and shower her with tenderness and care. And there is a part of him that wants to fold her in half and fuck her senseless until he yanks the whole damn planet out of its orbit.

 _Focus._

The former would probably be him, the weak one, Ben Solo. The latter would be Kylo Ren. He wanted her to rule with him, to set all of this anew. The whole damn lot of them – the Sith, the Jedi, the Resistance, the Empire and the Republic – it means nothing anymore (except for his sexual fantasies, apparently). There are only him and her now. Only if she could see that – only if she could let the Jedi ways go.

He has to snap out of this.

Only then she turns and sees him, but she practically looks more through him. Her demeanor is softened. Something is changed. All sternness is absent from her looks, all that righteous decisiveness is put aside.

What has happened? Has he inadvertently broken her with politics, with public display and with that mock-fight?

Oh, no, he didn't – he heard about her smashing the droid, breaking the disc. He would grin, but there is something solemn about her still. He doesn't want to spoil the moment. Her, bathing in the sun in her swirling long delicate dress, the ends of her hair dancing in the wind around her face.

For a moment, she doesn't wish to talk. The sight of the lake is too beautiful. It makes her feel at peace. Her ring corresponds to the color of that lake. There is something almost blissful in this place, when she turns her back on the First Order and the command center carved in black stone, when she pretends they do not exist and that she is the last remaining person on the whole planet.

And he complies with that wish.

It is truly beautiful. Beautiful things can be found in strange places. Evil made some of the most beautiful spectacles in the galaxy. Did she see the flickering lights of a dying star caught in the gravitational field of a black hole? Probably not. Maybe one day he'll take her to see the Hero Twins, or the Tannhauser Gate?

"I trashed your droid", she says eventually.

 _I ruined your sheets._

"So I've heard", he retorts.

 _I took your virginity in my dream and then I masturbated over your mental image while you were still asleep._

"What?" She turns around and blinks.

"What?" He raises his eyebrows.

But he soon composes himself. She didn't hear him, thanks to whoever has a jurisdiction over these things. And perhaps no one, for that matter: Sith were regarded as gods by some primitive nations, so were the Jedi. But neither were deities, only Force users.

 _There is only Force_ , the old credo goes through his head like a virus.

His vision catches the glimpse of the warlords and weapon traders negotiating with his officers on the lake-shore. Pests.

"Do you want to perform another spectacle?"

"I am not a circus freak, Ren", she answers with a low growl.

"Ren" – he blinks. She rarely called him that. He was "Ben". He tolerated only her calling him that.

But Ren sounds like he wanted it to sound – threatening and impersonal. A battle cry, a wailing of millions. He should make her call him My Lord, or Supreme Leader. He should make her scream My Lord while he's unloading into her.

 _Focus._

"It is not a spectacle – it's a lesson", he replied. "Pull the water from the lake. Play with it. Make the plebs gasp".

She turns to him. Ah, that old gaze is back, that old look on her face. The determination, the fire, the righteous decisiveness.

Crait. She did it on Crait. It was her finest hour – it was their darkest hour.

Lifting rocks like they were nothing – but she had a strong purpose then.

The saber on his side shudders.

 _Don't do it, Rey._

 _Yes, do it, Jedi. Yank it. Break the treaty. Give me the reason._

Her thoughts almost form an expletive and then she turns to the lake.


	12. Chapter 12

In a blink of an eye, she sucks that lake dry. Part of him can't help think how much effort it took for the construction workers and Stormtroopers to build that artificial lake under the Emperor; how many droids and how many men-power. He should now – he was now in charge of that place. And there she was, mad beyond recognition, hurling all that water mass up in the sky, covering the sun, making a roaring sound of a vast waterfall. A thunder, a scenery of outmost terror and beauty – something that reflects her inner self perfectly. The wall of water roars and forms a rainbow in its base, a mist and brilliant foam down where the water clashes back to the basin.

Even her anger subsides at the sight – she marvels at her own creation like a child would to a sand castle it just built.

Everyone around her sees what she did, he makes sure of it. He doesn't make a move. In fact, he leans on the fence and tries to look as relaxed as it is physically possible to him.

She gasps – the effort lasts for too long and for too much. But she is stubborn, she won't let it go. He interferes and lets the spectacle last for a minute longer, lending her his strength. Then, as her power is drained, he puts the waterfall down. It roars and it splashes around and overflows over the edges. The war barons wail in fear, soaked to their skins.

Their pestering nature, their greedy little agendas, their gloating over the fact the First Order has to tip-toe around them to get new ships and new freighters and new weapons… Resistance put them all back into business. It all makes him almost want to sneer at the spectacle. But it is all ultimately so woefully and dully unimportant.

He wants to praise her for her abilities, but she gasps and trembles, and clenches her fists around the fence. The reinforced steel bends. The knuckles on her hands spring up and tense.

It was too much. She took it for too long, dead-bent to make them all tremble.

Now she's trembling. Panics – _I cannot pass out._

 _Oh, but please do. Remember Takodana forest._

 _Let me be of service to you. Use me._

It is either because his appeal lures her or because she is so drained – but she falls back and he catches her.

 _Very good – you can't release too much too soon. They'll hate you too much for your powers._

 _Rey?_

 _Rey!_

* * *

Physical and mental exhaustion – he pushed her too hard, and she couldn't resist the challenge. But he should know better, with all that training on both sides of the Force and all that fine education. The regret is almost overwhelming but he turns on his heels as soon as he leaves her at the care of the medical staff.

He learned this from Snoke – this is Snoke peeking through him, even from the other side: pushing him beyond his limits, relishing in his unrefined power but with complete disregard whether it will leave his apprentice broken and damaged.

When no one is there to see, he buries his fist into his old crossbow wound. The pain is an electrical jolt and it brings brutal clarity back into his mind.

 _Thanks, Chewie._

Otherwise, his weak mind will just wander back again to the sensation of her hip pressing against his lower belly. And then he'd lose it – again. He wonders how he didn't lose it while he was carrying her.

 _You have compassion for her._

But there he was – he had the opportunity to live that ultimate imperial fantasy. His Empress in his arms, him playing the role of the dark prince. After all, she was communicating with her late grandmother's spirit or energy signature or whatever in all hells it was.

A lovely family, the whole lot of them.

 _Let her rest._

* * *

He goes back to the command center and these young, newly appointed officers around him flinch. There is disdain – there is fear. Those are the things he is well acquainted with and that give him a strange sort of focus and contentment. There are many of Hux supporters there too – a bunch of hotheads with ambitions unsupported by anything consequential, offering only their vanities and alarming lack of scruples. _Vultures_ , he thinks and frowns.

"You man", he commands to the most hateful among them. "Inform me about Mandalorian unrest". He probably wouldn't even react hadn't the man had that passionate quality in his hatred. He was one of Hux's most loyal officers.

Paze shudders and frowns.

 _Saxons can handle the Nite Owls pathetic shreds. They do not need help._

 _However, they're scanning the outer regions of Mandalore system for Hux's escape pod._

The edge of man's lips tries to curl up a bit into a sarcastic smirk when he gets the fare share of his Force suffocation.

"I do not appreciate the tone of your voice, Paze", he says coldly and ponders on how low this man's pain threshold is compared to his own.

He could go on without air, his feet dangling above the floor level for minutes and minutes on end – Paze is at the verge of dying mere seconds later. His bones start crackling like glass very early on.

 _Pathetic_ , he thinks and he thinks out loud.

Then he releases the grip. Paze falls and yanks against the hard floor, making barely human guttural sounds.

"Stay alert", he says to the others. "Nite Owls will attack soon. Prepare for the Blitz Krieg".

No one dares to help the man on the floor who spasms by this point, releasing terminal sounds. He won't die, but he'll remember this, as all of them will.

"This is a lesson, Officer", he says down to him in a mock-mentored way. "Never underestimate your enemy. This is war, not your father's class at the First Order academy".

If he is to be the loyal shadow of the former leader, he might as well be the shadow to those deserving.

He counts on that uprising and expects Mandalore won't fail him. He needs to be out of Coruscant and away from her.


	13. Chapter 13

_And I'd want to see what I've seen,_

 _To undo what has been done,_

 _Turn off all the lights –_

 _Let the morning come._

Florence and the Machine, _Over the Love_.

A lot of going on in this chapter - the Sleeping Beauty moment being the most prominent. And I wink to the EU lore. I know, I'm going on a limb here, but there is strong suggestion something else happened in Ben Solo's past that ultimately tore Skywalker-Solo family apart and pushed him further to the Dark Side. The most possible explanation is that he was wrongly accused of some serious crime he didn't commit, and that his father failed to believe him he was innocent (and he was).

Because internet is dark and full of wild theories.

* * *

As the day waxes and wanes, as all his duties and training are over, he has to go and see her, again. It's completely irresistible. It's like both sides of the Force unite with the sole purpose to torment him. At the same time, he wants to go away and never come back; and to stay forever by her side, trying to convey all that regret he has had ever since Crait. He even finds himself sitting in front of his old pen set and a clean sheet of paper. He tries to write it down, all of it. But only a cacophony of thoughts comes floating in. He's exasperated. She makes him feel both exasperated and exalted at the same time.

She is sleeping peacefully. With her hand over her waist, showing his mother's ring. He knew what it represented, but it pained him too much to even think of it.

 _Beautiful._

Her lips are parted slightly as she breathes rhythmically, showing her glistening teeth and just a small fragment of the shiny interior of her mouth.

How he'd love to stay there for a while: to simply be. Physical contact makes him feel intensely uncomfortable. The battle interaction is, of course, something altogether different. There is no intimacy or humanity there to deter him, to confuse him. Very much like simple fulfillment of carnal desires, there is no need to know or to respond to your enemy. But it is different with her. He remembers the warm and reassuring touch of her hand, the one hand in the galaxy that wasn't outreached with a sole purpose to harm him or murder him. He remembers the pressure of her body against his in the Throne Room, when she used his back as a support to defeat the Praetorians. There is wonderful hope and joy radiating from it, like a sun. How well her name suits her. Probably the only good thing her parents did, except for giving birth to her, of course.

He makes sure no one sees him, threading as softly as he can and sending low energy of the Force to subdue any intruding mind. But the sick bay is empty. This part, at least – he dispatched all of them elsewhere some time ago. It's white and it's silent in there. The skies are again overcast outside – only so much his engineers can do to make a day like that.

He ponders for a moment at her side, calculating on all possible outcomes. He'll go away soon, he can feel it. Rebellion there will be ripe and, by all accounts, Nite Owls are fierce. Dying there would not be such a bad outcome at all. Done in the blaze of glory – swept away by whoever yields the dark saber now. He had visions. He knows death follows him wherever he goes.

Except in this place. This place radiates with life and with promise. But he's so skilled in destroying everything worthwhile that it makes his jaws clench.

He shudders at the prospect of harming her, and then forces his thoughts in another direction: would she mourn him? Would he find that sort of compassion in her? Or would she be immensely relieved the moment she realizes he's done for? Will she feel his loss in the Force?

Melancholy floods him like a wave, extinguishing his burning tension and self-hatred. He actually can't remember he ever kissed a woman. The few concubines he had he took roughly and from behind, loathing every moment except for that numbness that would dampen his tension and his conflict. Tenderness would burn him worse than 10 of Snoke's training sessions. He was accustomed to pain and suffering, but giving in all the while having that sort of passion and shared intimacy (as he suspected tenderness would look like) was a paralyzing thought.

 _I have to remember you, Jedi. You will be the last image I'll see, I know it._

Before he realizes what he's doing – his body seems to follow another tune since the Throne Room and he almost regrets the lack of masochistic control he had before - he leans in slowly. He presses his lips against hers. His chest hurt confronted with her intense fragility, but her softness and warmth lure him in, soothe him, and control him. Part of him doesn't want her to wake up – the other part so desperately wants for her to respond. Even if to kick him right in the crotch. Pathetic fool he is, indeed.

It probably didn't last for more than few seconds, and then he retracts. _Enough._

He turns to leave, feeling as if his sternum will be split in half. _Mandalore. Send the troops. Lead. Be the first to lead them. Die when the chance is presented. Kill many and get killed when the body count is high enough._

But as he tries to make the first step away, he feels just a slight tug on his sleeve.

Butterflies.

Then the tug swiftly moves to his belt, the one that keeps his scabbard in place.

It becomes firmer and he lets himself being swayed.

"Ben", she murmurs even before she opens her eyes.

Oh, that name. He'd destroy that name the same way he destroyed the man under that name. But somehow, and for some reason, he doesn't want for this tug to stop – both inwardly and outwardly.

 _Call me again. Tell me._

She now looks directly at him, and her hand finds his.

"Don't go", she whispers in her low, dark voice.

He was never attracted to female voices with that bright, ringing quality to them. Perhaps that's the effect of growing up near Leia Organa– her voice a sort of husky velvet.

Hers was different – oh, so much different, but still so similar in a way.

He leans in to inspect the place from which that sound comes from. He sucks the air out of it. He makes her moan shortly and his tongue reverberates under that deep, tender music. Her apparent yearning steadies him and invigorates him. He wants to go deeper. He wants to have more of her as he feels, quite rightly, that the gates have been opened.

 _Let me undo what has been done_ , she almost sounds apologetic.

Lips still locked, he raises his eyebrows.

 _What that has been done – and how?_

And the images of the Throne Room come softly in. She is pushing them in: images of him, being trained by Snoke – training meaning physical and mental torture after which he's left half-insane and broken; and him being awakened in the middle of the night to the image of his own murderous uncle. She somehow picks up all the other poignant memories from the pre-history of his dysfunctional family and of his pathetic childhood too: the ancient memories of him as a very young child, being left alone for long spans of time under the care of professional tutors – responsible and wise, but nothing more. The endless marital battles between Solo and Leia, after which something is usually left trashed and broken – and it's always another piece of his mother's heart. She even picks up that lost child from somewhere; from beneath the mental rubbles he has buried his sister underneath – Jaina. She means to undo everything, all of their faults – she wants to make amends. She wants to take that pain away. But as he almost recoils at the thought, both disgusted by the idea of sheepish reconciliation with the Jedi and ashamed that she'll perceive him as a weakling and before he almost breaks that bond again, he realizes just how she plans to make it right.

He is startled by the shapes that emerge. Something changed in her sleep. She saw something and it moved her. It moved all the broken pieces of a puzzle into the correct order.

The exact details are blurred, but the blueprint seems so enticing.

"Are you alright? Do you feel strong enough"? He whispers to her pillow.

She nods and sits up in her bed, strong and steady. But before she lands her feet on the floor, he takes her in his arms again. He likes the sensation so much so he seizes the opportunity. Perhaps he fears she'll run away again. Perhaps he fears she'll summon the saber to herself and make a run of her life, and he'll just have no other option but to – let her go, pretending that he didn't.

What is he thinking?

He has to keep her occupied, that's certain for both their sakes and for the sake of his sanity.

Not to his room – it is nearer, and it was sanitized for sure, but he recoils at the thought that she'll sense the filth in that room.

To her room then – it's more remote, but it's more lonely and he dispatched the guards since she was in the sick bay, so less Force manipulation for him to perform there. He needs all of his strength.

Mandalore is forgotten now.

She squirms a bit in his arms as she realizes where they're headed.

 _Comfortable?_

 _Yes._

Her room is dark and warm and full of pure scents. It seems so welcoming. It is clean, unlike his own dirty cave. The light activates automatically as they walk in.

He pauses for a moment in the doorway.

 _Do you want this?_

She squirms some more and looks at him with her deep amber eyes with fireflies of gold and emerald – he saw that already – it is the Butterfly Nebula.

The realization doesn't surprise him. The only thing that surprises him is that he didn't notice it before.

 _Yes._

He goes to her bed gently and lowers her there. It appears she has a special place she likes the most. She sinks into it a bit, that ludicrous bed (what was he thinking?) accommodating her shape.

In that moment, she is transformed into the exact image of her that possessed his dreams that morning: His Empress in her pearly gown spilled around. But reality surpasses the fantasy by a long shot – his brain cannot fathom all the extent of that yearning, gentleness, compassion and care permeating from her. It's like the ocean- calm surface and brilliant lukewarm water rolling over fine sand.

They look at each other for some time, synchronizing their actions.

 _Would you -?_

 _Do you want me to -?_

It's easier for him, he supposes. He only needs to unbutton the belt, to kick off his boots, to unzip his shirt from the side… and the trousers he'll keep to himself for a while. He knows the sight of his erection might scare her or even worse, disgust her. She never saw a man completely naked. He inadvertently scared a female Jedi student once in the Academy, while he was taking a shower. It was a comical misunderstanding and she visibly shunned him afterwards to his outmost embarrassment. But shunning him wasn't enough – the Knights of Ren put her to their sword.

He pauses for a moment.

He was waiting for her to either break the bond completely or to understand the bits that made him redeemable in her eyes. He recoiled at the thought of the former, and ached with yearning for the latter.

The way she said his name in front of that fiend of his dead master:

 _You underestimated me, and Luke Skywalker, and Ben Solo,_ makes him shudder again.

He felt, for a first time in a long time, that he really is someone. He is someone to somebody else – he was something important for her. Someone she looked up to. His name gained a new life on her lips, so much so that it made him wish painfully he was indeed what she saw in him.

The heart of his hearts does not want to fail her, but his rational mind is sneering at his face: _you'll fail, you always do, you deviant, pathetic boy._

Something akin to trust and faith in her, that was already rooted in him since so long, resumes its stunted growth. The moment he saw her, he knew she would be his undoing.

But he is strangely patient. He is only patient with her, and even then he is not entirely consistent.

 _Breathe._

As he observes her peeling off the layers of the delicate fabric (steering a light freighter would come easier to her), he starts picking up on something – not quite a sound, not quite an energy signature, but something completely ethereal, hard-to-detect even to his heightened intuition.

The bed under him, the mattress – they hum with weak energy, no more than a memory. He focuses, perplexed. The compound is built on top of the old palace that Darth Vader destroyed previously. Roughly around here, Padme Amidala would have her quarters. But this is not placed so distant in the past – this is something much more recent and fresh.

The images start shaping.

 _Oh, Rey._

Her awkward masturbation makes him want to smile, but he doesn't want her to notice. He doesn't want to insult her. He feels so less alone and guilty of pleasuring himself to her image.

She removed the fine woolen overcoat after some struggle with the silver ornament on her waist. He jumps to her side and helps her with the rest. The fabric feels like crisp snow and even makes the same noise.

It makes him feel playful, if not slightly whimsical even. _Let's take away the snow_ , he thinks and almost giggles _. Let's melt the snow from the Starkiller Base,_ he thinks again but his playfulness overwrites his regret.

She is left with a single layer of chiffon acting like an undergarment on her.

That's enough.

He observes her barely covered body with outmost admiration, her form both youthful and feminine: narrow waist, hips perfectly rounded and strong, long slender legs with curved thighs. Her whole body resonates with pure and inviting energy. So much longing it makes him feel intoxicated. Her body is full of uncharted regions and every single one of them beckons him with trembling and anticipation. He'll go back to those lips to open them petal by petal (she pressed them harder against each other while she looks at him half-timid, half-inviting) but there is another part of her he wants to taste and suck in gently.

He lowers his lips on her tender nipples over that soft cobweb of fabric with a sigh. They harden and she arches instinctively. He engulfs them with his mouth again and she yelps, surprised.

 _Gods, Rey._

He ceases being Kylo Ren or Ben Solo – Skywalker. He is just hers – and that is enough and so much more than he could ever hoped for.


	14. Chapter 14

_"Like any lover, he desired to please; suffered agonies at the thought of failure."_  
Thomas Mann, _Death in Venice._

" _My faithful friend, there where you sleep or rise,_

 _Sleep you no more; in safety lift your eyes._

 _Far Orient, the morning star stands gleaming_

 _Leading the day that drives us all from dreaming_

 _And soon outshines all dawn's light._

 _My faithful friend, I sing what you must hear_

 _So sleep no more"._

Guiralt de Bornelh, cca. 1165 AD, _Reis Glorios_ (Alba song of the Troubadours).

* * *

He makes his way up to her lips. The sensation is otherworldly (and in Outer Rim Worlds he was, and seen so many things of strange beauty that tested all his senses and reasoning, but this is something new and something far more exhilarating). He doesn't know exactly what he is doing, nor does she – at least not on the rational level. But somehow and very quickly, they synchronize. He is completely absorbed in that simplest of human responses – the kiss. Lips locked, he feels her body reacts to him intensely and truly. It hums and that humming turns to downright singing to the very cellular level. Her warm hands embrace his neck from the behind and he feels immense gratitude and joy for being able to hold her in his arms like this. Joy and gratitude – it's like opening a sealed room after years and years of neglect; opening the windows, letting the fresh breeze of the morning and the sunshine to rush in.

He moans her name again: "Rey".

Ahch-to, the moment she came back from the Dark Side to tell him about it. So alone and of sunken heart – her sadness giving her the sort of beauty he never witnessed on anyone or anything. Her small hand feels raspy, warm, reassuring and strong even in the face of her utter disappointment, so much so that he doesn't know who is comforting whom – or maybe it's absolutely mutual, like this long and passionate kiss. Her lips are indescribably tender and her tongue is all velvet and passion and timidity. He could remain like this forever had that music of her body not drawn his attention. It is concentrated in one single place and he reaches out for that place almost instinctively.

She touched it already this morning, he remembers. It's almost like they touch it together again, in perfect unison.

He leads her hand under his, urging him to show him.

She blushes all over with embarrassment and pre-orgasmic build up, but complies. Exactly like in his dream, she again pleads with him to go easy, to be gentle.

 _I know you can._

Her fingers go inside, and his hand is only there to cup hers. She strokes herself and moans directly into his mouth. So soft, so warm – it sends jolts of energy down his spine. He pushes only one finger alongside hers and she yelps, but soon accommodates. She lets him in. She lets him feel it for himself.

Soon, she leaves him there and locks her hands around his neck and his shoulders. She marvels at his features. She licks the scar that she made and then she kisses it some more. She fought him before, but only now realizes how strong and tall he is. Was it really him? Was it really her? His taste is one of salt and something else, something uniquely his.

She leaves her eyes open so she can see him – although the haze that descends on her is so strong and so alluring, that she wants to shut everything off except for the sensation of his intense presence near her. She wants to forget everything except his hands around her, in her; his thighs rubbing gently but passionately against her own; his slick tongue against her own. There is slight clumsiness to his behaviour, but he is inquisitive and attentive of her every reaction. There is a roaring tension bellow his waist, but he controls himself not to release it too early, primarily for her own pleasure. She has to show him that she's capable of the same. That she is strong and in control. That he can rely on her in every single segment. But his eyes transfix her. How changed they are. This is not just mere physical reaction, it's something more. He's changing. That gaze she remembers from Ahch-to morphs from apprehension and yearning to supplication and mad longing in the Throne Room. But now, it's soothed. It's gentle and vibrant. There is softness to that gaze that makes her love him even more. Just another night like this and he'll yield. She opens him petal by petal and she will never crush him. He was never so open and so vulnerable to anyone before – she can't betray this moment. His tortuous life prevented any kind of connection to another human being. The obscene and depressing scenes of his erratic releases come and go like a bad dream. It's exhausting to him and it leaves him numb, not satisfied. A demonic sneer greets him. A demonic creature knows his every move and his every weakness and he resigns to the darkness, convinced there is no way to escape. Not a moment of peace or intimacy. Rey shudders but there is no disgust – only immense compassion. She kisses him deeply and tenderly, tangling her fingers in his hair. Softness and hardness, vulnerability and strength; she moves a bit further, a bit more forward and her muscles accommodate around his fingers. It's dizzying for her and it encourages him.

On his part, he's learning quickly and finds his way to her arousal.

He plays there, thumb on her pearl. He curls the tips of his fingers and rubs her soft crevice, observing her reaction. She arches up and that music of hers becomes a thunder. _Very good, at least this I'm doing right,_ he thinks. She was never touched like this. Powerful images come his way. Loneliness. Brutality of her existence. Instinct as the last resort when waiting and longing feel too much.

 _At night, desperate to sleep._

On the other side of the galaxy, he has already broken from the Jedi. He is already a Jedi killer. Fear and destruction follow him wherever he goes and create a halo of emptiness around him.

Lonely. Both of them. But there is hope for her in the future she doesn't even know of, and there is nothing for him – except for her.

His dream is an idealized version of this, and this is so much more raw. He finds the end of her cavity, but the hymen is almost completely broken – physical effort, constant physical straining. Doesn't matter to him – actually, it makes him feel even more for her. It reveals all her vulnerability and all her stamina in a single point of her body. He wants to make it up for her.

Her music comes to a crescendo.

She is so tight down there and so longing – he wants to soothe that place, to kiss all that strain away. His fingers stay there, but his tongue is on her pearl this time. It surprises her, it scares her even, but she clings onto his hand that pins her chest gently down and presses harder. He loses his breath for a moment as his teeth meet her tenderness.

She is done. The music weakens and starts dissipating into millions of longing but growingly non-melodic tones. Stimulating her further would only turn the pleasure into pain and frustration, he realizes. He wipes off her fluids from his face and asks her:

"Do you want to go on your belly now… like you did this morning?"

Belly – tummy – stomach – goddamn abdomen, hands and knees: he's talking to her like she's a kid, and a kid she's definitely not.

He is flushed with embarrassment now. (He hasn't felt that warmth in his face since what feels like forever.)

That is her safe position and it suits him well. He doesn't want to go aggressively against her. She already knows why. It almost breaks that moment, but she knows who he is. What he's done. She saw all of it already onboard "Finalizer", and still she came to "Supremacy" to reason with him. Stupid girl – foolish girl full of undying hope and trust and light – a true Jedi: Snoke didn't lie that time.

He almost thinks she relinquishes her Jedi memories too easily, but there is a resounding echo of: _there is no death, only the Force._ Gods, it comes back at him again, and it comes from her. The Jedi apprentices loyal to Luke - they have all declined his offer to join him and have showed an admirable degree of opposition. They fought desperately, even though they were convinced Luke has died and that all was lost, making their effort even more valiant and agonizingly frustrating in his eyes. They were worthy opponents and he would gladly welcome them as the Knights of Ren (probably much more than those that actually jumped at the opportunity as soon as it presented itself). But he couldn't leave them alive, as much as they couldn't spare his. It was a point of no return for every one of them and they all knew it. And now, they are one with the Force. They made peace with all there is. And he is left to his own hell with only one Rey of light.

 _Thank you_ , he murmurs. But she is sunken already too deeply to hear him. He is just a beautiful static to her by that point.

He falls backwards with his hand still on her chest, leaving her some time to turn over and to let him do what needs to be done. What he needs to be done – what she asks him to do.

Her delicate hands are cupping his and it looks almost like a promise, like a betrothal – _I won't leave_. She left that ring on her finger – probably forgot about it – but now he's glad she took that token into this bed with him. Her heart pumps the blood strong under his palm and he wants to be buried in that place forever, in the very heart of her hearts.

She is his for the taking, erasing the Throne Room from his memory, emphasizing Throne Room, refining all that raw strength released there, all that passion and all that suffering. She allows him to be used by him, and solely by him.

 _I won't leave_ , she speaks again. Can she hear him after all? The vision of him, wounded and passed out, comes like millions of fine threads penetrating his mind with outmost tenderness. She feels sorry for what has happened – not for the fight, but for the tug of war they had after and that sends him into this state of weakness. There is no single murderous thought in her at that moment, although she is quite capable of finishing him off with his saber. Only sadness, confusion, anger and vast disappointment. _Who knows what Hux will do the moment he finds you._ But she has no time. It's a point of no return now and it's as dangerous to her as it is to him. The vision wobbles and goes slightly back in time. It takes a lot for her heart to be broken, and she is now at the very brink, but pulls herself together for the Resistance's sake, for Leia, for Luke, that deflector and the whole galaxy. How strong she is. She cannot accept what he offers. He pleads with her and millions of voices scream at her to succumb and to try and to negotiate; while other millions scream at her to _get out, get out, get out_. _Take the saber – he's not to be trusted – you did it already on the Starkiller Base – it will yield again to you._ But it yields to him as well this time. _Ben, can't you see what it means?_ It yields to him in a perfect half, in a perfect symmetry. _Stop it. Let it go. Please._ But he doesn't hear her then, deafened by his own rage and the pain of inner wounds that are again burst open.

 _I hear you now_ , he utters and the grip of her hand tightens as she climbs on her elbow to look at him.

"You know what it means", she utters, her eyes set ablaze with the new hope. "You waged a victory there. It wouldn't come to you have you not waged that victory – on your own, without my help. You did it on your own free will".

But the diabolical machinery of his mind finds him even in that secluded moment and prevents him to accept the whole meaning of her words.

It grinds him and it's vehement.

It wouldn't take much to destroy her in this state.

Rule galaxy with me? Yes.

Go with me on a war campaign and drink the enemy's blood with me? Yes.

Few nights like these and just basic dark training and everything she was would be destroyed, like he promised to Luke Skywalker. She would be his.

 _Bridle her_ , the darkness whispers ominously. _Lock her in. Cover her with lavishness. Make this her gilded cage forever. Drain that energy out of her like Anakin did to Padme. You know what happened, historian. You know what happened in this place to every last detail and you can make it happen again._

 _You would become invincible._

And he would be dead.

But she startles him. She's done observing whatever it is she sees in him and she is undeterred. She understands. She is fearless and that darkness in him subsidies in front of her stubbornness. The sickness won't go away so easily. She goes against her impetuous nature and far beyond to reach out to him.

"No", she whispers, but her voice is passionate and determinate now. "That is not you. I want to see you".

She rises up to her knees and gently removes the tangled hair from his forehead. She's little unsteady on her legs, which he notices with immense pride – he made her knees into water. She is so fragile it makes him want to grow stronger for her. He leans in and kisses her again on her lips. She takes him back and bites him slightly on his lower lip. He responds with a small, surprised roar. She is testing him, but it's a welcome test and he is under strong impression he passed it with flying colors. His arms encircle her waist and her wet and hot core rubs against his leg. He'll lay her down again. His hand wanders to her perineum and she quickens.

"Slower", she murmurs. "Gently, my love".

The expression, so common and so natural for her, confounds him and he goes back to look at her. Love. Said in a moment of passion? True confession? Bed side colloquialism?

And as he is still trying to wrap his head around this, she tackles him over, landing herself on top of him. He almost loses it. His swollen pride hits the rough linings of his pants.

He moans. Again, he underestimated her. He almost wants to giggle at the circumstances that led to his misjudgement.

"Did I hurt you?"

Even with all her wonderful Jedi insights, she is still so ignorant. Then again, this isn't something covered by the actual Jedi teachings either.

This is something uniquely theirs, exclusively theirs – if he was to die now, he'd die a happy man. She pulled him out of his half-death that he called life.

"No", he says and pulls her gently up, pulling his trousers down at the same time. "I'll lead you. Don't be afraid".

By the looks of her, she likes what she hears. She's fearless, but she appreciates gentleness – and especially his.

He draws her chin to his face and kisses her again. Her lips are now hotter and drier and her tongue goes deeper. She descends on him, following the trail of his arousal. Her pupils dilate. The sensation is strange and this is something that obviously goes over her Jedi head. Her simple astonishment makes him want to giggle, so he pulls her face to his again. No need to embarrass her or insult her. They kiss deeply and longingly until she gasps.

 _We can stop._

 _No._

 _No, we can't or no – I don't want to?_

 _Both._

She mounts him, boldly, slowly and completely. There is a painful twitch on her face as she rides him almost to the end of both of their limits, and her hands tense around his neck, but she is fierce and she is wanting. She rides him beautifully. Her music is now strong symphony pouring all its energy into him and he almost completely dissolves in it. Through the pain, she reaches her pinnacle first and he lets her have it. Her head leans forward and their foreheads touch – she's hot and her sweat has her scent. Her muscles flex and he feels the grip is gradually loosening, to some of his disappointment. He'll just release himself later. But as he tries to dismount her gently, he is met with a shocked gaze.

 _No. Stay._

 _Rey._

 _I know. Stay._

As soon as they finish each other, she falls on his side, nesting her head in that place between his shoulder and his neck.


	15. Chapter 15

_The collective unconscious – so far as we can say anything about it at all – appears to consist of mythological motifs or primordial images, for which reason the myths of all nations are its real exponents. In fact, the whole of mythology could be taken as a sort of projection of the collective unconscious. … We can therefore study the collective unconscious in two ways, either in mythology or in the analysis of the individual._ [C. G. Jung, "The Structure of the Psyche," CW 8, par. 325.]

 _We'll be sufferin' here  
In the blood, in the fear  
If your Judas be man  
I will kill you if I can_

 _Children born to get high  
Turn your heads to the sky  
We're burnin' in the heat below_

Mark Lannegan & UNKLE, Looking for the rain to fall.

* * *

The Force hums peacefully between them – no lighting to tear them apart, no crumbling walls around them to reveal their shame to the world. Just the peaceful dimmed light of Coruscant and the silence of that early morning. Her belly rumbles, but she doesn't want to leave that place at his side. Summoning things with the Force requires at least some degree of focus, and now both of them have none and don't care. He giggles openly to that simple noise and stands up to his feet so he can bring the fruit to her. She falls over the bed, trying to keep him there by clinging to his loose trousers only to make him kick them off altogether. She laughs at the spectacle and he returns the laughter. It is really something completely silly. Such simple anatomy for something otherworldly: but as he turns back to her, he realizes she observes him with devotion. She never saw him or heard him laugh. She feels safe. He made her feel safe. The bloody Jedi Killer made her feel safe.

It is all just insanity, but maybe that's all there is and everything else is just over-philosophizing the simple facts of life.

She wants a home; a safe-haven; something detached from the rest of the world completely. A place of her own – and she invited him there. He feels overwhelmed with joy and honor. Had he known that he'd ever have this effect on anyone, his 13-year old self would feel so much less alone. His transition to Jedi academy would go so much smoother. He might even find some peace with his uncle…

What is he thinking? Is this how it feels or is it just her, mending his mind with some Jedi skill she learned on the way and he didn't?

But she does seem blissfully unaware as she eats the Jaquira fruit, ripe red juice dripping on her chin. He smiles at her awkwardness but lets her stain the bed and everything else with it. Let her do whatever she wants, like yester night.

He didn't intend to come inside her. But then again, he didn't want to use protection with her either. He wanted her whole – not some sort of surrogate contact, but the real her. His life was long ago turned into one prolonged tortuous episode, but this is a sort of torment he never had before.

What if she stays pregnant?

His mind is troubled for a moment as he struggles to find a secret hint, a prophetic dream, a vision of the future. But there is nothing coming to his mind save for her peaceful purring at his side.

And what if she does really? Wouldn't it be just – grand? Imagine that powerful bloodline, those scions of the Force – children with her Butterfly Nebula eyes and his stature. Imagine the message it would send to the galaxy – his powerful Empress, not a delicate flower, not a sporty Jedi in training, but a powerful woman, fertile and strong.

It almost makes him stiff again.

On the side note, imagine the Resistance receiving that news (they still gathered like an old Dejarik club they were reduced to). Imagine the pilot-turned General imagining her sweet Jedi ass covered in his cum.

But as soon as these thoughts practically intrude on him, he regrets it. He wants to pull his brain out from his skull.

She heard him and the wonder is gone. They plummet from that special place, from her safe-haven, directly again to that snow covered forest on top of the Starkiller Base. And from there, they sink down even further – she sends the whole Mustafar scenery to his brain; molten lava, mindless rage and destruction all bundled up. And what's most important, Mustafar she has never seen.

But this is something straight from the Jedi collective unconscious.

His saber is in her hands, active even before it hits her palm. The rage makes the saber yield to her. He tries to snatch it from her – but her pull is so strong and he is still unfocused, unlike her. His saber is now inches from his neck, hissing at him like a rattle-snake, pricking his skin with the unstable energy emission.

 _Get out._

 _Rey._

 _Get out._

She practically kicks him out of that bed. The walls tremble with her sheer power and she throws the deactivated saber at him as he scraps his clothes from the floor. He disgusts her. His saber disgusts her. She took it only to make a point. Or to slay him – he doesn't know which. Only her consideration for the fate of the Resistance stops her from detaching his head from his body or slicing him in half like Snoke.

Now he becomes enraged.

"Stop it", he growls. "You're going to draw the attention of the whole planet to this place".

 _Isn't that exactly what you wanted?_

He looks at her as he buttons up his pants.

That compassion is back again – it never left him.

"No", he answers sincerely in his own voice. "No, never – they are nothing to me. The whole lot of them is nothing to me".

He wants to say a lot of other things, like: _"But you are not. You are everything to me. I'd burn the whole damn place to the ground if it would make this go away. I would throw myself right in the reactor core of a Death Star if it would please you. Please – forgive me. I am sorry"._

But he is too proud and too rigid, and she is too furious and too hurt.

And has the higher ground – he let her go there himself.

 _Get out._

The blast door closes with a resounding slam behind him.


	16. Chapter 16

At the same time, I'm both disgusted and amused with what Kylo Ren did in the previous chapter. He turns to the Dark Side of alpha male bull under the influence and I had a lot of fun writing that in (because you have to have some kind of brain damage to reason like that). But Ben Solo is there to stay. This is just a cynical interlude.

I made Mandalore look much worse than in Clone Wars. More than two decades have passed and years of vicious sectarian conflicts - it's not going to stay the same.

Also, this chapter contains a lot of mature content, so, beware.

 _We took you right_

 _From your mother's home_

 _Our temple, your tomb_

 _Can be your pick_

 _Not pawned_

 _The poison is blood._

Fever Ray, _The Wolf._

* * *

That uprising finally bursts open on Mandalore like a big festering wound – or orgasm - and he almost wants to kiss or fuck (or both) every single one of those Mandalorian rebels before he splits their skulls open.

Gods, the amount of sexual tension is such that the First Order could plug him into another Starkiller Base and use him as an energy source.

(And the recurring memory of her almost completely naked, wielding his saber, the plasma beam painting her magnificent body red, doesn't help his inner peace much.)

The ceremonial droid snaps him out of his hectic thoughts and out of the war preparations.

"What"? He barks at the machine.

"A message, Supreme Leader", the device exclaims dully.

"Activate it", he grunts.

The ceremonial droid places a small sheet of folded paper on his desk.

He pauses and looks at the sheet with glazed eyes. Her hand-writing, precise and rounded, too perfect for an adult and too precise for a child – he tears open the wax seal and reads it.

" _Supreme Leader,_ (so they're on these terms now)

 _I was made aware that you are planning a Mandalorian expedition. My conscience prompts me to remind you that Mandalore doesn't ally with the Resistance any more. In the light of this fact, I implore you to consider our treaty still valid. Furthermore, I must again appeal on your own conscience and remind you that, since time immemorial, the strength of a true leader is proven in the extent of his mercy_ (oh, is it now?) _and therefore, I implore you again to show mercy to Nite Owls. Remember that the fraction was sided with Empire once and that their primary goal is to secure peace and autonomy to their home planet. I am acutely aware the First Order won't allow full freedom, but a high level of autonomy is, in my humble opinion, not only quite plausible but a very desirable outcome as well._

 _With the hope you will consider my plea; I remain, as always, faithful to the terms of the intergalactic peace treaty._

 _Rey"._

Marvelous – and utter bullshit – she's been communicating with the Resistance since day one. There will be no mercy – he needs this campaign.

First he crumples the paper, but then abruptly changes his mind and puts it in his inner pocket. This is the first letter she ever wrote to him – formal and annoyingly ceremonial – but still hers.

"There will be no reply", he says to the droid dryly.

The Nite Owls better not disappoint.

* * *

He gathers his most loyal officers and takes them on a mission to re-instate the Saxon vassals to Mandalore. He brings all his Chiss officers with him and promotes one of them, the one with the least pronounceable name and with most brutality, to the position of a general.

The planet is a dump. It's a desolate place torn by centuries of war: abandoned domes, barren landscapes, toxic atmosphere, venomous life forms… why would anyone (save for the Mandalorian fanatics) fight for this planet is beyond him. Or is it? He feels how fiercely his enemy loves this planet. It is the only home they know. It is their land. It is almost erotic, like man's love to his wife.

He is so full of sexual frustration it throws him immediately into frenzy and bloodthirsty euphoria.

He blames his parents for this. They would fight first, objects crashing, vases crackling, yelling at the top of their lungs… and then they would make out passionately. He heard them only once – and it was enough to realize there is a pattern there. He was a precocious child.

Only he turned the whole pattern upside down.

Nite Owls had a major fall-out with the Resistance, breaking the short-term alliance they formed. They don't understand the politics of the Resistance and they hate the decadence of the Jedi (he thinks he actually likes his enemy). Satine Trosyc is their leader; she is the adopted daughter of Bo Katan Kryze. And although they are vastly outnumbered and technologically woefully primitive, they are cunning, brutal and patriotic. They know their planet's every inch and they are a vicious guerilla. It needs a lot of effort to make them run for their lives. His own men – the First Order men, he calls them his own only automatically – have their morale crushed in matter of days.

He meets with the Saxons – they swarm around him like hyenas and self-serving snakes that they are. They try flattery on him: they rescued Hux some time ago, barely alive, on the outskirts of the Mandalore system. (He now officially hates his allies.)

He sighs and thanks them for their war efforts, which sounds exactly like he thinks it. He doesn't care to hide the disdain. Hux is weak and battered, and survives mostly thanks to his unbridled hatred for Kylo Ren – but the predicament of his situation keeps him silent.

Kylo Ren sighs some more and clenches his fists again. This time, he broke that pair of gloves. He squeezes out an order to promote Hux to the highest possible rank of the First Order: the Grand Marshal, the Governor of Mandalore.

Hux looks at him with his bloodied gaze in amazement and utter shock. Even the current of his inner hateful thoughts stops for a moment.

This was the title he coveted so much and never received from Snoke - he's so distraught after days spent in space without food and water that he forgets his permanent post will be on this damn planet.

Nite Owls attack again – he rushes to clash with them himself. (He is again thankful and realizes he likes his enemy even more.)

He is ambushed with his squadron. He looks for they leader, and sure enough, he detects her as she practically sniffs him back from across the vast abandoned dome. Two packs of wolves colliding – she flings herself against him, roaring. He remembers her from that corridor and confirms his suspicion that she is Force sensitive, although completely unaware and untrained.

He almost wants to repeat the whole: _"You need a teacher"_ offer – Rey needs companionship – when that crazy Mandalorian bitch hits him viciously in the face with her ridiculously tough forehead.

The surrounding doubles and he tastes his own blood on his lips.

"Thank you", he openly says to her but apparently, she doesn't know the Galactic Standard.

She expected him to pass out or die – but doesn't count on the fact his pain threshold is much higher than of any other man in existence, thanks to Snoke's treatment mostly. She realizes her mistake in a split second, but it's too late to retreat – even if she wanted to.

Her blasters are no match to his saber and she is soon disarmed. The _beskad_ she pulls against him puts his saber to a screeching hold, but it soon breaks.

 _You are outnumbered_ , he communicates to her via the universal language of the Force, unsure why he wants to keep her alive. _Your men and you are doomed. Surrender and I might spare your life._

She looks from beneath him with outmost hatred. That blaze in her non-human, white-less eyes reminds him irresistibly of someone else. He understands fully why Rey liked her so much.

But then she grins with the set of apparently endless, ivory-colored pointy teeth. A loud explosion paints everything with red and grey dust.

" _Why, of course",_ he thinks, coughing out the dust. _"The bombs – I should've realized it before"._

The remaining Nite Owls breaks lose – they have nothing to fight with anymore. And as his men pant and cough, barricaded in that dome, with his heightened vision he sees Satine and her remaining fighters fleeing in – X wings and outdated TIE fighters. No way Nite Owls could get hold of those without help.

He'll pretend he didn't see that. He looks around – no way anyone else noticed it.

He needs his dear enemies more than he needs his damn allies.

Their cavalry – the Saxon and the remaining squadrons – come minutes later, but the combat is already over.

* * *

Mandalore is back to Saxon. Saxon clan throws a great banquet and it lifts the spirits of his battered men immensely. They drink the bitter Mandalorian moonshine they try to pass as exquisite wine in barrels. That abomination hits fast and hits hard. He distastes alcohol his whole life, but raises his cup in the name of the _big_ victory they waged and that he couldn't care less about. But either is he already blood-drunk or his nerves are tensed to a breaking point or the wine they serve to the troops (but not to him) is watered down - the liquor makes him almost completely deranged.

He sneaks out of the banquet hall and like an animal, tracks down that Stormtrooper that he fucked – and promoted - before. He again can't remember her name and he still doesn't care. She doesn't care either. It's all transaction.

He must be completely mad with that contaminated booze (a neurotoxin produced by fungi probably acts on him and his men and the Saxon clan) but something in him needs the comfort, needs the warmth and just raw physical presence. Her skilled oral brings the old kind of relief and then an even greater, all-consuming emptiness, now mixed with the post-combat tension.

"Come with me", he commands her to follow him to his room.

"Yes Sir".

As they enter, he offers her another cup of that Mandalorian poison and she accepts it. He gulps down another cup all at once and doesn't care anymore about the effects.

"Take it off", he growls. "All of it – and do it slowly".

"Yes Sir".

She discards her armor piece by piece until there is only black uniform underneath. Every single plate detaches with a soft click. She puts them all in one place, meticulously: good soldier.

She starts undressing herself, and it's over more quickly than he intended. She only needs to remove the reinforced synthetic shirt and pants made from the same material. She pulls a preservative from the pocket of her pants – not exactly common reserves of a Stormtrooper, as far as he is aware – and she places it inside her with a business-like, emotionally detached gesture.

"Wait", he growls again.

She halts. He observes her – lean and strong, taller than… her. More mature, breasts plump. Someone – some idiot of a peasant - would find her more attractive than that Jedi girl that tried to rein him in. Her code tattooed on the inner of her wrist. Battle-scars, old and new – there is only so much a bacta bath can do.

His eyes wander.

A symmetrical scar at the bottom of her belly – not a battle wound: a C-section. She was with child once. Where is it now? Surrendered to the First Order for Stormtrooper training.

He blocks himself from thinking further about it, but it's too late. He's now already both horny and filled with melancholy.

Perhaps it's the wine or the fact that she was in that ambush with him, but this time it feels more intimate and more compassionate. Although the previous ones weren't exactly placing high standards in that department.

"Remove it", he says and gestures to her thigh and breast bounds.

Her nipples are stiff and dark, and the place between her legs is freshly shaven.

"Touch yourself".

"Yes Sir".

That formality annoys him.

"My Lord".

"Yes My Lord", she says and sighs, her fingers circling the core of her.

But it's still unsatisfactory and before he can regain his focus, he utters: "Ben".

It's good she misheard him. Either way, no one of them knows that accursed name.

"Yes My Lord Ren", she whispers and dares to look at him with her eyes slowly losing focus.

He is exasperated – with himself, with all this madness. He grabs her abruptly and throws her on the bed, hands and knees down. That's the proper way of doing things, not letting that girl straddle him like he's some kind of sex toy to her.

But he wasn't, he knew he wasn't. Her annoying Butterfly Nebula eyes are now tattooed through all layers of his cortex. He remembers everything and it makes him want to scream. He tears his own clothes and scatters them around. He pounds against RY like possessed, like he's running away from her, like he wants to fuck that memory out of his deviant mind.

And of course he can't escape. It's even worse with that drug in his system.

Even from that hole of a room, his poisoned mind can almost see her shape forming: clad in long dress, color of fire embers, one that fails to conceal her hard nipples and the tuft of darkness between her legs. Pale strong arms embrace her from the behind and start stroking the places that belong to him: her tender girlish breasts and her sensitive nub covered with dark silk. She closes her eyes and leans backwards against her invisible lover. He roars in that hallucination and roars with pain and delight in his actual Mandalorian room. She gestures at him languidly not to do anything. This is for him.

" _Prepare us",_ she whispers to the shadows behind her and he realizes: it's that rebellious bitch again. They kiss and they touch and he gets harder still.

She gestures at Satine to leave her, and she does. _Good,_ he thinks, but in the next moment, he feels just a bit of all of her bloody Mandalorian teeth on his member. The sensation is sudden and her alien body temperature is probably slightly higher than an average human's (where did he pick this information from?), but she is skillful in that hallucination. All those males of Nite Owls are loyal to her with supplementary reasons.

He would still kick her right in the head, but Rey's hand intertwines with his. It is so soft, so warm – he feels her strong forearm and the dust of hair on her armpit.

" _You waged a great victory",_ her shadow says to him, echoing her words of that morning with a new, perverted meaning. _"Now you will receive your just reward, My Lord"._

She straddles his face and lets him drink from her until she squirts all over his mouth. She dismounts him and dismisses that whore of her friend with a kiss, savoring his early milk from her lips.

" _Now, My Lord and Emperor",_ she commands and undresses herself. _"Tend to your Empress"._

Surprisingly, he makes the woman under him come. It's a definite orgasm. He didn't intend to make it happen. It's marginal to him. But her moans reach him and he growls:

"Rey".

He hears the panting question from bellow.

"Yes My Lord Ren?"

He frowns.

"Nothing. Stay there". He comes, but not inside her. _This time, do it properly._ He leaves the white pearls in the rift of her strong back. She twitches, but he supposes it's not unpleasant to her.

He looks at the sight and the sight looks back at him, mocking him. He scrubs his semen off of her, disgruntled. The room is so small, to the point of the claustrophobia. Now it's steaming hot with their breathes and their bodies. The ventilation probably malfunctions, like everything else in this hell-hole of a planet. Who knows in what kind of a litter his troops sleep. No wonder Nite Owls took their first battles. This whole place is soul-crushing in itself.

"Stay there", he commands again and collapses on top of her. His head hurts where he was hit by that Mandalorian scum.

The obvious sign that the whole galaxy is coming undone is the fact there are these feral females running amok all around, claiming power, claiming what's not theirs. That's exactly the aftermath of the Old Republic: the centuries of democracy and lawlessness ruin a galaxy like that. He almost wants to thank RY… what's her number again?

His eyes wander to her wrist. 418. He needs to promote her, again. She was with him in this war campaign and she proved herself efficient and loyal.

He eventually dozes off with his head in the gap of her lower back.


	17. Chapter 17

Kylo Ren tries to apologize. Doesn't go exactly as planned, but there is at least some kind of truce. A much tamer chapter (he came crushing down from the narcosis of the previous chapter).

 _I will not pretend  
I will not put on a smile  
I will not say I'm all right for you  
When all I wanted was to be good  
To do everything in truth  
To do everything in truth._

Martha Wainwright, _Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole._

* * *

Intercom activates.

"I need to talk to you".

 _Need._

Exactly what it is – need. He could've used the ceremonial droid, but that bucket can't convey the basic need he feels. Something between an endless current of apologies and that gentle and passionate love making they had.

He had an unnerving feeling he'll be met with the usual "Prisoner has escaped" drivel. But nothing happens. She's still there. She's still furious, but her fury began hardening and cooling like hot lava. She feels impenetrable. No Force bond – no communication: he'd take it easier if she cursed him the moment he entered the orbit.

She needs some time to open. There is frustration behind that door and angry hesitation.

She opens eventually and for some reason, his first impression is that she's even more beautiful than before. And soon enough, he realizes why – it's her old open woven tabard from the Throne Room. Everything is in place, except for the belt – it lies behind her. She was packing and re-packing (why?).

But before he can analyze her thoughts and her actions in his absence, his eyes wander. (He really misses his former masochistic self-control). Her forearms are strong (had she been working out?). The shoulder wound is gone (he almost misses that mark). From the torn sleeves of the despised tan uniform, she made arm wrappings (a Jedi scavenger she is still). Her hair is pulled up at the back of her head like it was back then, onboard the "Supremacy" (he remembers that bundle of brown hair moving before him as he escorts her to the Throne Room) and her breathing is shorter.

She's been definitely working out, probably imagining punching him into oblivion, turning his face into mush.

Her upper lip curls up in disgust.

"You stink" _._

Actually, he cannot, it is a physical impossibility – they all had to go through obligatory decontamination after that littered planet and he scrubbed himself until sores appeared this morning, knowing that her Jedi senses will pick up on all that he did. Everything – from bloodshed to fucking that trooper to almost killing her precious Satine – why did he spare that bitch's life again?

 _But breathe. Focus._ He tries to calm his hectic mind. Those useless Jedi teachings would now come in handy.

 _Breathe._

Her eyes narrow.

"The turret. 10 minutes", she says and slams the door shut.

He could easily pull her from where she's standing and drag her wherever the hell he wants…

 _Breathe._

 _Focus._

* * *

Those 10 minutes feel like eternity and he almost thinks she crossed him. Not even Emperor's fancy lake can soothe his nerves.

But precisely at the arranged time, she comes. She's changed. And the change dumbfounds him.

One of those Holdo-esque dresses, only with a shorter and symmetrical cape reaching her waist from behind and with a conspicuous cut on the chest.

He has no objection to the form and fit, in fact, he likes the sight of that floating material gently hugging her hips and narrow waist.

But the color and that décolletage – those just leave him sipping with anger. Had she remained in that dark grey tabard, the effect would be less. No one here really knows much about the Jedi dress code. But as for the other part of that murderous alliance… they very well know their color preference.

He'll find out who authorized that dress and demote that idiot.

The color is amber with golden threads – it should probably pay homage to the old aristocracy and the Sith traditions, but on her it looks like a single Resistance banner, tauntingly displayed at the very centre of the First Order facility.

And she is completely aware what she's doing, so there's no place for coincidence here. She even strides slower and lets the material wave back and forth, left and right, like she's waving a huge Resistance flag right in front of his face. He can almost picture her – rummaging through the wardrobe, disgusted and dissatisfied, until she finds… this piece.

Even the cut out resembles the wings of the Resistance, with middle part covering the delicate shade between her breasts.

"You've… changed", he says dryly.

"I operate with what you give me", she retorts coldly.

 _And out of 100 dresses you had to pick that one up?_

"You'll be happy to hear that your friend Satine is alive", he squeezes the words out to her with outmost effort.

There is a sign of relief on her face, but she doesn't budge. She glares at him sternly as he continues.

"And as I suspected, that b… she is Force sensitive", he growls.

This one is a genuine surprise. She didn't quite notice it and now she ponders on that fact. She frowns – what implications does it have, considering the Jedi killer scanned her and left her alive? Will he go back and finish the job? Killing of every remaining Force sensitive, child and adult, in the galaxy?

Her hesitation and silence prompt him to continue.

"And tell the pilot and the Stormtrooper defector that their X junk is too conspicuous", he says, wanting to sound cold, when he in fact gloats openly.

And now she's genuinely shocked.

 _You can't just wave with that dress like that and go unpunished…_

 _Breathe, just breathe._

She is also genuinely anxious and grabs him by his forearm. Her grip is firm and demanding – incredible how much power can just one small hand have. The sensation goes through him like an electric current.

"What do you plan to do?" Her eyes are now widening with worry.

He likes her hand on him and the proverbial upper hand he suddenly has, but her annoying loyalty to the Resistance dampens the small triumph.

"What do I plan to do? I plan to do exactly nothing", he barks. "Mandalore is settled. Nite Owls are nothing. Your Resistance is nothing. I do not go around and wage war against Dejarik clubs".

She realizes they are touching and so quickly lets go. That contact is truly discomforting to her, he can tell.

It's agonizing.

"Just for discussion sake", he continues. "If I was to do something about it, what would you do?"

She doesn't answer and she doesn't look directly at him anymore.

She is struggling. He stepped into something that is far more complicated than he realized. He thought she'll just say openly she'd try to slay him. She is Jedi, she can't lie.

 _This is gold._

He expects her to just turn on her heels now and leave, but she stays. The soothing effect of her presence starts setting in. Not a million imperial lakes in the sky could make him feel more at peace than her. She makes him feel almost poetic. For the first time since the Mandalorian campaign, his lungs expand to their full potential and breathe in properly. Coruscant, with its dense population, isn't actually the paramount of air purity, but after that hellish planet it feels like his grandmother's planet of Naboo.

That watery mirror attracts her attention again and she leans forward to greet the light breeze that comes from it. She doesn't smile and doesn't talk, but he feels her demeanor softens a bit.

He'd like to slide his hand up that opening on her back, under the short cape. He'd like to do the same in the front. To feel the pulse in her jugular veins, to kiss the back of her neck – to lay his head on her shoulder and just not do anything else. And then - oh, how would he like to strip away that disgraceful propaganda piece from her.

He would also like to beg for her forgiveness in simplest of words. He broke the trust. He was the one who betrayed the unspoken treaty between them and still feels he didn't suffer enough for his transgression. She never received so much in one night, and neither did he. The sweet memory of her calling him "my love" makes his whole resolve and aggression dissipate like they're nothing. And he had to betray that trust to a misguided imperial sexual fantasy. And for the Empire he had no inclination whatsoever to. Damn them all. They can all burn to cinder for all he cares.

 _Rey._

But she interrupts him, the damn stubborn thing.

"Is that Satine's work?"

He still wears a small Bacta bandage over his nose. _The bitch broke it in 2 places._

"Takes one to know one", he growls but surprisingly, it makes her laugh.

She shows the set of her glistening, brilliant white teeth. Again, he has an insurmountable urge to taste the slick surface of those teeth and to let them bite him in all sorts of places.

How long does that Mandalorian moonshine stays in one's bloodstream anyway?


	18. Chapter 18

A small humorous chapter and a glimpse of what Ben's Jedi academy days looked like. Luke started teaching him on Crait, and I firmly believe this will continue through Episode IX. That whole scene is very comical, when you think about it; however I don't believe, not for a second, that was the last thing Kylo Ren will see of his former (and future) master. I am a reformed Reylo optimist - Kylo Ren will die, but Ben Solo will survive.

Also in this chapter: Ben is such a nerd.

* * *

 _Do you not come your tardy son to chide,  
That, laps'd in time and passion, lets go by  
Th' important acting of your dread command?  
O, say!_

 _(Father's Ghost.) Do not forget. This visitation  
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose. _

William Shakespeare, _Hamlet (Act 3, Scene 4)._

* * *

The Day of the Empire is approaching. And with this menial Mandalorian campaign, Kylo Ren agrees to make a lavish banquet for his troops and for Coruscantan war aristocracy.

He steers clear of that Mandalorian wine this time. Troops may have it, if they want, but it only proves to him how pathetic First Order is.

It all bores him to no end. Since his return some weeks ago, he's been training obsessively, pushing himself to his breaking point, exhausting himself so he may sleep at night.

But he is restless regardless. The Imperial Day Snoke re-instated apparently stirs the spirits. One spirit in particular – Luke's. After all, it is practically old man's birthday too. He probably feels slightly nostalgic around the date. (And he surely makes dramatic entrances with sudden power outings, electrical insurgences, droids malfunctioning and weapons inactivating inexplicably.)

But as soon as his exhausted body starts shutting down on its own in the early morning, the ghost appears right over his bed.

How quaint.

"Kid", he calls him.

"Go away", he growls back.

"You're slacking off, Ben", Luke persists.

What in all hells is he talking about? He was never a slacker, unless Luke became another version of Snoke in his afterlife – and Kylo Ren knows he didn't. He was his best student by far – meticulous, precise, talented and powerful. He remembers Luke's eyes, mixing awe, mentor's pride, concern and – fear. Ben Solo was light years before any other Force sensitive youth that Luke picked. And above all, Ben Solo had the bitter sort of motivation no one else had.

Ironically enough, Luke's ghost looks exactly like that time the weak Ben was first introduced to Jedi academy. He remembers everything – it's one of his many faults. He remembers the image of a young boy trembling with anxiety, the Force around him vibrating like a beating drum in the rhythm of his own fretful heart.

Cheap trick – to remind him of his own weakness.

 _This is just ridiculous._

It reminds him too of all the times when the sweetest slumber would come to him in that very last hour before the dawn training session. Dreams of him rescuing a girl – dreams of forest covered in snow, of him rescuing her in the pouring rain – he was incurably romantic when he was in his late teens, with his calligraphy and history books and obsession with the Old Republic. "Wait for me, sweetheart", he whispers in his sleep, embracing the pillow like he would embrace his hypothetical beloved. And then someone (usually Irin) would just barge in and pull him from under his sheets. "Wake up, my Lord", he says, mockingly. (Irin's special talents included total disregard to authority and prophetical visions in the Force, although Kylo Ren highly doubts the boy was capable of controlling his visions at that point – sometimes, Force just makes bad jokes.) If it wasn't Irin, then it would be Luke. Already alert, the Light Side around him swirling annoyingly as he opened the door.

"Come, Ben, it's time".

He was a kind of a nocturnal animal all his life, and Luke was not. He was a solemn, precocious kid, while Luke was a whimsical adult who felt annoyingly at ease with his legacy. Two polar opposites – two natures that couldn't be more far apart from the very start. Force indeed has its own strange and perverted ways.

At least he had some success in dissipating of Luke's easiness later on.

And soon enough, there it is – the appeal on conscience, as preformed by a very unconventional Force ghost:

"Let Rey go".

He is still there, now sitting on his vast marble desk, legs crossed. He found the crumpled piece of paper Rey sent him before the campaign (Kylo Ren placed it under a marble press to straighten its edges up). The ghost is smirking, mixing pity and irony.

Pestering geezer.

"You let Rey go", Kylo Ren growls. "You're the powerful Force ghost now. Corrupt the electric chips on her door. Lead the way. Help her take the saber. Help her finish what you started. Help her half me like Snoke! Help her get a bloody light freighter, a "Supremacy" class ship and the whole lot of my army! I'd let you do it all just so I can have some peace from you, you bloody Jedi… half-wit"!

He stands up and wants to hurl something at his former mentor, but he knows it is in vain. He fired the whole barrage against him on Crait, and in the aftermath he is still here, trolling his waking nights.

…and slurping the goddamn blue milk all over his books and his marble desk, leaving real milk blots– is it possible to kill a Jedi twice? Why can't this family just die peacefully like the rest of the galaxy and stop haunting the living?

But the ghost only smirks at him.

"You sound just like your father".

 _That is just a very low blow_ , he feels - low even by Skywalker's standards. The old wound on his abdomen hurts like he is being burned all over again.

He sits on the edge of his bed and stares at the old man.

"Do I?" He speaks in his usual low growl, sadness and guilt making way to helpless rage. "I highly doubt Solo was ever capable of keeping even his own ship to himself, let alone the whole Empire".

He stands up to his feet again, towering the little man.

"Your pathetic Republic is gone and will be no more", he hisses. "Everything you ever strived for is destroyed. The last person remotely capable of restoring the democracy is gone. Resistance is destroyed. And as for your precious apprentice –".

He halts, realizing his words stir the Dark Side to a climax, but continues nevertheless. The wound is practically exploding on him by now.

"Just another few nights with her in my bed, and she'll be turned. Turning her will be the last remaining obstacle and her defenses will fail miserably. They already did. Stay around – see it for yourself".

Sometime ago he would probably compliment himself on his lavish sadism, but now he feels so empty. His gut is burning. Can she hear him? It doesn't matter – the damn fool will convey everything to her.

He scrambles to the untouched Correllian whiskey he knew his personnel left for him. It is generally regarded the liquid has something to do with masculinity and elitism, but now he only needs something to wash away the repugnant taste of his words from his mouth. Water, poison, medicine, alcohol or everything of the above – he doesn't care. The amber liquid burns but it's a welcoming, human sort of smoldering. It even subdues the pain to some extent. He drains the whole glass in one gulp.

He stares into a dark gray wall in front of him. It must be the exhaustion and the constant Skywalker-induced insomnia. This is borderline psychosis.

He speaks out softly.

"I'll die if she leaves", he says and wants to punch the wall in front of him to regain his manhood, but something keeps him in place.

His voice becomes even more sorrowful, but at the same time, he feels strange sort of relief for being able to tell any sentient being this.

"You help her escape, and there is nothing left of me, do you understand, old man?"

"Left of whom – Kylo Ren or Ben Solo?" Luke asks, tongue-in-cheek.

"Enough", he growls and finally lets the rage come in. It's the glass first, hurled with his own hand, coming crashing down through ghost's head. Then it's the decanter, followed by the remaining glasses, the massive desk with the marble top, chairs and his bed. His black robes and books now flap frantically in the air like frightened flock of birds. The room shakes in seismic spasm. But the furnishings and everything else remain floating mid-air.

Of course it was useless – and more than useless – barely a second later, the intercom activates and the jittery voice of a Stormtrooper comes in.

"Supreme Leader, is everything in order?"

 _Everything is in utter disorder._

"Yes. A glass broke. Go to your post, man", he growls back. The embarrassment sets in.

Whenever he would snap at the Jedi academy, it would end just like this. Things he tried to trash floating like a huge exhibition of his lack of control for all to see. Only now it's his late uncle and him. How appropriate.

Luke seemed annoyingly content, like he unearthed something that was long buried or like he extracted a festering thorn out of a patient's foot.

"You could end it all right now, Luke", he regains something of his detached tone. He even makes that flick of a wrist that signals the First Order dogs to leave him alone in his commanding chair. "Why don't you?"

"I said you were slacking, Ben", Luke says again, letting the things fall down softly.

If only the useless fool would finally exploit his powers for his murder instead of making things float… that would be a welcoming exit from these sleepless nights and this mental castration. Pity Luke didn't finish the job that night in the cabin.

But then the ghost leaves him for some time.

Kylo Ren's nerves are already a wreck by that point, so any prospect of sleep goes right out of the window. He's left alone with the chaos of his thoughts and with the chaos of his room. Again, a nauseating reminder of his Jedi days – he would be left with a broomstick and a bucket of water to clean up the mess he made. No Force use – it was sort of penance for letting the rage in.

 _It would take a lot more than a bucket and a broomstick to mend the mess I made this time,_ his insomniac brain murmurs bad, demented jokes.


	19. Chapter 19

" _She had always been beautiful in his eyes, and admirable, too. He had worshipped her, in some ways, for her courage in adversity, for her resistance to the ways of his own world. But that had been bravery under siege and now, it seemed, she single-handedly gave siege to the same society which, a few months before, had threatened to engulf and destroy her identity. There was a determination in her bearing, a lightness, an air of confidence, that proclaimed to everyone what he had always sensed in her - and he was proud that his world should see her as the woman he knew, in full command of herself and her situation. Yet there was, as well, a private knowledge, an intimate understanding between them, of the resources of character on which she drew to achieve that command. For the first time he became conscious of the depth of his love for her and, although he had always known that she had loved him, he became confident that her emotion was as strong as his own. Like her, he required no declaration; her bearing was declaration enough.  
Together, they ascended." _

Michael Moorcock, _the End of All Songs._

* * *

She is still here. He wonders how she'd organize her own escape. It would be something reckless, an utter improvisation and thoroughly remarkable.

But she is still here, for whatever reason.

She shows up at that banquet without any verbal dueling, without any opposition. She shunned him all these weeks, but he feels her rage has subsided. Why? Has Luke been visiting her too? Did he convince her to stay here? Stick around for a greater good and finish off the Jedi Killer: it would be poetic, in a way, the Last Jedi killing the Jedi Killer. Did he convince her to shun any physical contact? To uphold to those idiotic Jedi celibacy canons – he has his doubts ever since she stopped him in the corridor to tell him:

"Leave RY-418 alone".

He looks a total asshole this time. Who? What?

Rey looks at him, shocked by the whole scope of his complete and utter exploitative alpha male bullshit.

"The girl, Ren. The Stormtrooper", she frowns, her voice a low growl. "Leave her alone".

But she isn't jealous – this isn't jealousy. She doesn't mind his… needs, she objects the ways he satisfies them. She feels genuine compassion for the soldier. Her compassion is at the same time both annoying and exhilarating. If she had that much compassion for an anonymous Stormtrooper other than that damn turncoat, then she might have pity on him.

Pity – he goes and trains and leaves a hole in the wall where his fist went. His knuckles bleed, and a ligament snaps – he celebrates the anniversary with Bacta bandages on his hand, tucked under his gloves.

He leaves RY 418 alone. But first he promotes her, again. He had enough of her, and so did she of him.

Rey mingles with the civilians after the war mongering part is over. His restless (and sleep – deprived) eyes lurk over her from the opposite part of the hall. As soon as he can, he dismisses his generals and sends ceremonial droids for more Corellian wine for the troops: real wine, not this abominable booze from Mandalore that makes people deranged, wild and drugged.

This decision is met with outmost joy in the troops – they salute and drink to his name time and time again. There is firework and all the rest of that nonsense. He turns his back to all of that and uses Force manipulation to clear the way ahead so he might be with her.

Her beauty transfixes him quite. It aches in his bones.

She's wearing a dark blue coat buttoned up to her throat with intricate silver buttons. It's ankle long and there is a glistening texture underneath in a matching color. She has her hair bound up high in symmetrical braids and Padme's earrings on her earlobes. He thought she detests those after seeing Padme's spirit, but the wonders never seem to end. She's talking to a Sullustan merchant – his insiders know the creature has a long standing sympathy for the Resistance, but is too important in the Sullustan hierarchy to be discarded so quickly. He wants to uphold order, not create chaos.

 _"It is the task of the First Order to remove the disorder from our own existence, so that civilization may be returned to the stability that promotes progress. A stability that existed under the Empire, was reduced to anarchy by the Rebellion, was inherited in turn by the so-called Republic, and will be restored by us. Future historians will look upon this as the time when a strong hand brought the rule of law back to civilization."_

 _I hope one day you'll understand this._

Rey is curious and has never seen Sullust. She converses with the alien pleasantly and gentle-mannered, and the merchant obviously enjoys her company. She is sipping Corellian wine they served the troops, and she already laughs a little bit too widely even for her own standards. (He loves that laughter.) He swiftly sends the alien merchant away.

"You found something to your own liking", he says and satisfaction permeates his tone.

"Sullust is an interesting place", she says and sips some wine again.

Han Solo's favorite – he wasn't a man of good taste, but this one he had right.

"Let's walk", he wants to show her off to the war barons and the troops, but not too conspicuously – they're not lovers, she is his apprentice. He has turned her to his side.

They step outside the balcony that overlooks two or three vast platforms underneath, crowded with troops. As soon as he appears, the troops applaud him and hail him as the Supreme Leader. They've already eaten and drunken considerably. It's just pitiful how little a simple minded trooper needs to be happy.

He waves at them with an ironically short gesture.

"Don't mock them", she says to him behind his back.

Again that irritating compassion – he turns to her and says:

"Wave back too, Rey. You're celebrating the Empire".

She shakes her head and the intricate earrings swirl around her neck.

"No".

He tenses and pauses for a moment. He was pondering over this wild decision of his for some time. Since she was disarmed, he put her saber away, in a crate, to muffle its annoying Light Side murmurs. He couldn't deal with that thing that emanated so much light, Anakin being redeemed striking the last blow to the heart of the darkness. It still roared around it like a wounded animal, he could hear it too acutely. He deliberated on turning the saber to the Dark Side, but his previous experience was far from satisfying - last time he tried to bleed the light from the saber it nearly killed him and the end result was an unstable matrix. And this core, infused with the ultimate victory of the Light Side, wielded by the very last Jedi – her – is too powerful to so easily give in.

And its owner is not an exception, despite all the loathsome threats he hurled at Luke's ghost.

Her stubbornness inspires him to provoke her in some way – she is not easily swayed nor is she easily broken. Perhaps surprise will work better on her, since everything he did is exactly what she or anyone else could predict would happen. Perhaps he'll make her even duel with him – wouldn't it just be exquisite? The ultimate spectacle for the Empire Day: damn those fireworks and light-sculptures that work mostly on Chiss, anyway. Supreme Leader's death in public eye would be so much more elating.

He turns to her and surrenders her that bastardized two-sided abomination of a saber matter-of-factly. What a waste of a perfectly good kyber crystal – but the shock and awe on her face wipe out his urge to sneer at her weapon.

She takes it slowly and with disbelief.

"Just take it, _apprentice_ ", he grunts and she either mishears the title because of her pure amazement or isn't bothered with the game anymore.

But as he surrenders the saber, he realizes – the deep blue color resembles mourning attire, not Empire or the First Order – clever girl. He now pays attention to the details on her coat – the buttons are obviously taken from something considerably older. Very intricate, very solemn – no mockery in that – he's part royalty himself, so he recognizes style and grace immediately. Vintage stuff – Alderaan system engraved on them.

 _Oh, no, she didn't._ That subtle diversion makes him shudder and makes him want to laugh loud and wild. But he can't –he's surrounded with these lower life forms and he is the prisoner of his high position.

Did anyone notice it? Of course not – everyone is tipsy and so self-absorbed. This is not about the Empire, or Mandalore – this is one huge business transaction, war-merchants pushing their agenda in the corners of the vast imperial hall.

But her taunting idealism invigorates him and the scholar in him can't be more delighted with the use of historical references.


	20. Chapter 20

Shout out to **howlongbeforeyoutalkaboutsand** and **Silmarillion279** for introducing the Gray Jedi Code into their fanfiction. They did it so good that I tried to replicate it somewhere and somehow. Of course, I failed, but it was still worth the try and very fun to do.

Some bad humor and just mildly mature content in this one.

* * *

" _I have lost my rhythm._ _  
_ _I can't sleep._ _  
_ _I can't eat._

 _I have been robbed of_ _  
_ _my filth."_

Charles Bukowski, _Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit._

* * *

Sometime later, as the celebration already turns into one big military drunken night (he has already given up any hope of sleeping properly, so he just orders a large cup of wine-coffee) he immerses himself into the small book entitled "The Code of the Gray Jedi". He never was the part of that brotherhood-sort of camaraderie, not even with the Knights of Ren. They meant nothing to him. They were always a tool to get what he wanted – freedom from the Jedi and the Light Side, and a peace of mind. And they failed miserably at both, which made him feel no remorse as they slaughtered one another in sectarian conflicts.

If he must be haunted by his late uncle's ghost, then he might as well welcome it awake and intellectually alert.

" _There can be no chaos without order, no good without evil. Such is the way of the universe. The Force flows through us all, in all of its peace and passion. This, the Gray Jedi believe, and by this, we shall live…"_

Although they suspiciously reek of some disorderly conduct, in his state these words feel so soothing to him. There is something genuine and at the same time, reasonable and human in those words (although Master Leor Danal was by no means a human). Peculiar things happen all the time. This book was really hard to come by as it was deeply buried in old Sith library beneath the Sith temple on Coruscant. Luke Skywalker didn't demolish the building, but he re-purposed it. First it was an infirmary, then it became a school, then he planned to make it a Jedi temple again, but the resurrection of the Empire in the form of the First Order put a stop to his plans.

Passion – there was a breaking point between him and the Jedi, one of many. Having that woman in his arms was the most exhilarating experience of his life, one that made him feel alive again and almost at peace with everything. Her very presence was enough to subdue the pain, like she possessed some unknown Jedi talent that she wasn't even aware of. Why would this be prohibited? Had they not tightened the leash around young Anakin Skywalker, he'd probably never slip into the Dark Side, he'd become a wise and powerful Jedi master and Padme's life wouldn't be ended in heart-break…

What is he thinking?

He felt the power of Darth Vader – it intoxicated him, it gave his strayed life a meaning, it gave him the resolve needed to discard the Jedi nonsense, to break free. But Vader wasn't free. He was Emperor's slave, bound to do his bidding.

But he is something different – he is free.

He feels the strong wine-coffee isn't enough to keep him awake. His chin soon hits his chest. He jumps, startled as he dives into these incoherent thoughts.

A movement behind him wakes him up completely.

 _Luke – gods of the galaxy be damned, you pestering old maniac!_

But it's not the master, it's the apprentice now.

She is really there, in her long overcoat of deep blue, now appearing completely black, her rebellious Alderaanian buttons glistening on the dark texture like stars.

"I didn't want to startle you", she says and smiles.

"You didn't. And I wasn't planning to sleep anyway", he says irritated, but at the same time puzzled with her soft tone and _that_ smile.

"I didn't thank you for trusting me with the saber. And I didn't thank you for letting Satine go", she goes straight to the point and now he's sure he's hallucinating after all those sleepless nights.

"Who told you I let her go?" He barks and then remembers. He is quick to forget about the rebel scum. "Ah, I see. Your Resistance pets you've been communicating through illegal channels".

She smiles again and comes forth, soft steps on woolen rug covering the floor from wall to wall. She comes in the range of his desk-lamp and now he sees he isn't hallucinating at all. It's her – very much physically present.

"That's another thing", she says. "Thank you for letting the Resistance ships go".

There is a throbbing pain in his temples by now – the wine-coffee over-stimulated his nerve endings, but did nothing to perpetuate the clarity of his intellect. She approaches and with her, the light breeze of relief.

"Wait", he remembers. "How did you enter?"

"Plain Jedi mischief", she says and goes through his library. "What are you reading?"

He won't pursue her "plain Jedi mischief" right now. He wants to share with her this wisdom.

"The Gray Jedi code", he says.

He doesn't hold against her the fact she has never heard of them. She was her master's apprentice, after all. There are perhaps three copies of that book in the whole galaxy. And all that righteous enthusiasm she has probably makes her immune to the musings of Leor Danal and Jolee Bindo.

He lets her read the first pages of the small manifesto. His mother's bipartite ring shimmers peacefully in the half-light of his room. She reads intently, and re-reads it more.

He is tired. The pain waxes and wanes.

"What do you want, Rey?"

"Nothing", she says plainly, returning the book on his desk. "I couldn't sleep, and I knew you couldn't too".

Smart little fox, spying on him through his tiredness and confusion – she must've been talking to Luke.

"You saw him, didn't you?"

"Yes".

"What does he tell you?"

"Different things – things only ghosts can see", she says, and by her peaceful tone he realizes she hears something truly hopeful.

"Did he tell you to come here tonight?"

She turns to him and smiles – a small mischievous smile. First of its kind – he never saw that movement on her face before. It is peculiar, but it pulls him in. He wants to know more.

"No".

"Don't lie, Rey".

"I'm not lying".

She roams a bit around his room as if to say: _"So, this is it"._

 _He told her about me dying without her thing. And now she gloats like every other flirt in the galaxy. And she prohibited me from contacting RY… what's her number again? And I obeyed._

 _Old Jedi pimp!_

"Go away, Rey", he's tired of this idiocy. He'll fall asleep, and then he'll find a way to exorcize his uncle's ghost from his nights. And to erase this foolish passion which he has for her, after which he'll die (and finally get some sleep on the other side of life).

But she is stubborn and she is disobedient. Only she would honor Alderaan by wearing its complete map all over her body wrapped in mourning attire on the Imperial day. Only she would wear a gown that resembles Resistance banner right in the middle of monster's lair.

She sits on the edge of his bed and starts unbuttoning the whole damn demolished galaxy from her chest.

His heart stops.


	21. Chapter 21

I'll finish what I've started. Mature content and some ridiculous sex in between. Thinking about renaming the whole story "Jedi sex-therapy" or "Jedi tantric sex" but I'm just not that kind of tawdry... yet.

* * *

 _Nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals  
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture  
compels me with the color of its countries,  
rendering death and forever with each breathing._

E. E. Cummings, _Somewhere I have never travelled, gladly beyond._

* * *

He had only the glimpse of that long glistening thing beneath her coat before. But now it appears in all its glory: it's dark blue sky covered with myriad of stars, again multilayered silk chiffon. And not the synthetic type, but the real thing, exclusive and hard to come by. His eyes fall to the plunging neck-line that finishes practically only inches above her navel with an intricate broche. Bare arms, except for two golden bands placed below her shoulders (probably again some sort of statement, but for now, he can only admire how lean and muscular her arms are against those delicate rings) and by the look of it, bare back – her beautiful strong back.

But above it all, that pure smile of hers, so genuine and almost addictive.

"Sit with me", she says like she owns this place.

His tiredness gets the hold of him as he tackles her on top of that bed.

 _Stop smiling so wonderfully._

If he is destined not to sleep that night and if Luke's spirit is destined to haunt him, he might as well show the master his apprentice's nakedness.

"I could arrest you for disobedience, Jedi", he snarls at her. "Would you like that? Would you like to spin the wheel all over again?"

He doesn't wait for her to answer. He gives her no opportunity to answer.

His hand rushes to the mound of her desire and finds her already soaking wet and tingling with yearning.

There is that Jedi cunningness wrapped up into a delicious package – she was already priming herself for this in that window-sill. Using the wine to relax herself, but not touching herself – oh, no – she was waiting for him to do it, to let him do her dirty work. She had all of this all planned up in her deviant mind that is even more devious than his is.

And as this realization dawns on him, adequately slowed down by the rush of oxygen supply to places other than his brain, he can hear her faint voice inside his head.

 _I was afraid you'll die._

 _I was afraid you'll kill Satine._

If the lighting would strike him down right there, it would be a lesser surprise. He relaxes the grip (it wasn't strong to begin with – he just wanted to wipe that stupid, beautiful smile off of her face).

But he won't budge. He is mad with her still – with her beauty, and her taunting him, and her making him feel all these bloody feelings all at the same time like a floodgate was opened.

"I killed many other Nite Owls", he barks at her but doesn't pursue the matter any further. The pain in his temples is a thunder.

 _I secured them honorable deaths. Now they are all in the state of_ _aay'han_ _._ _I could show you that; connect you with your brave bitch of a friend through Force… but I have to deal with you first. Teach you things._

That outrageous neckline serves as an instruction manual.

He dives into it and down under to the tip of her desire.

Gods, that scent.

He inhales that scent, signifying both longing and belonging.

He breathes in the air from that life-giving place.

His hands go up to reach her and find her breasts tingling like the first time. Rising and falling in the rhythm of his own breathing.

He never believed it was possible for two beings to be so synchronized. It was coming to them so naturally and so effortlessly.

He exhales, but breathes in again, greedily. Pregnant? No, not yet. But he feels acutely she can. He feels almost to the point of pain she would let him plant his seed inside. The lining is ready. There is peace, and strength, and tenderness and Force in that deep, velvety place.

But will the Force allow it? A possible new abomination such as him, or even worse than him?

The Force speaks to him. Bargains with him. Teaches him. Scolds him. Shows him what he needs to become so that...

Gods, he sniffed Sith ashes like this to gain insight and power, and now this. It's just ridiculous. It just goes to show how everything in the existence has an irony in its very core.

But while the Sith gave him power and gave him insights, they also put the load of destruction and emptiness on his back. Stench of death. The death of all deaths.

But this... this is something altogether different. Power, but mercy too. Control, but tenderness as well. And above all - life, pure and fresh and unpolluted.

Visions come his way. Vision of him and her observing a small cradle. A peaceful, barely sentient creature, no more than a bundle wrapped in softest of fabrics.

It could be his future, if only he...

But as soon as he allows himself a moment of tenderness, the cold hand of darkness comes from behind and pulls him back like a rabid dog that he is.

It will never let him go.

He hates the Resistance and the Jedi even more than he despises First Order and Snoke. He sacrificed all so he might become what he has become. This is the new era of Force wielders – and he won't give up on all this power he has now over planets and nations, even if it means sacrificing even more – her, the remnants of himself, his sanity, and whole planetary systems. If she expects that her virginal inquisitiveness and her rudimentary Jedi ways are enough to reform him, oh, how woefully wrong she is. How stupid and how pathetic. How tediously quickly her presence became boring. His teeth clench in the sheer torment and embarrassment of how wrong she is.

To make things even worse, she is completely unaware of this. _How can you? How can you be so selfish in your own lust?_

Her hips arch up to where she expects to meet his mouth and his tongue. But he steps back. It's an effort, but he wants her to capture just a tiny fraction of the torment he endures every single bloody second of every day – torn apart between the comfort and the honorable burden of the Light, and the decadent, unbridled call of the Darkness.

 _This won't go the way you think, Jedi,_ he hisses to her in his mind and relishes in his obscene blasphemy.

He pushes her flat belly down, and the sensation of his rough palm against her soft skin pushes her even further to the pinnacle. He seems to be doing everything right and the exact way she wants it, and it makes him even madder – if that was possible.

 _You won't have it your way._

He distances himself from her and towers her. Straightened up, he is fully aware of how short-breathed he is and how tight his pants feel. He tears off his shirt in one single movement and loosens the belt on his pants.

She is a terrifying sort of beauty – with that dress spread around her like the night sky, she looks exactly the part: his Empress lying on his bed like in the middle of a galaxy. Floating peacefully and self-assuredly in his Empire, subverting his own power so even he starts to wonder whose Empire is it: his or hers?

And what is even more outrageous is that she is not afraid, not a bit. She looks from beneath, her eyes languid and soft, and she downright purrs at him. She loosens the shoulders of her dress and now her aureoles show – it didn't take too much movement for that.

 _You won't have this your way._

He is almost tempted to summon RY-418. Make her do a threesome. Make her watch while he kisses RY, hold her against the wall and make that obedient soldier come and come again.

But he does something for her exclusively. He starts stroking himself violently. He hurts himself in the process, but proceeds through the pain.

 _Channel the pain. Pain is good. Pain makes you stronger. Absorb its strength before it is dissipated._

He'll finish himself off before she can do anything else. Even if she offered herself naked, even if she spread her legs and showed him all her shame and all her wickedness, he won't give in.

To his small triumph, she does indeed frown a little and halts. And then she sits up and her dress practically falls on its own from her shoulders. Her glistening skin emerges from the night sky, like a goddess reborn. She is still sitting as she pulls him to her. He tries to make a step back, but then loses his grip.

And there they are – the small, fluttery, deadly things on him, sparing with his hands on his lower abdomen and around his member. It's ridiculous, but she is determined and more flexible and quicker.

 _No._

Now she strokes him gently and slowly, trying to decipher his reactions. He is torn in all possible directions – one part of him wants those deadly things of off him, the other screams at her not to stop, the third begs him to go into her full force ahead, and the faintest nagging voice tells him to back off completely. It's a struggle, a new kind of it. His feet dangling over floor, the dark Force choking him, the dark lighting striking him to agonizing paralysis, minutes passing like eternity, his mind closing and giving into complete darkness because it is the only way to survive and to overcome… lights inside extinguishing. Is she aware what he can endure and what he has already endured? Of course she is not, joyful, chirping, friendly to everyone and everything from droids to trees and animals and people and all alien races little Jedi.

He almost goes to the same old dark haze of Snoke's torture, but this new tormentor does something new – something Snoke, luckily, didn't perform. She kisses the crossbow wound. She sucks on it intently, tenderly and compassionately. She licks it. Her hands tighten around his buttocks. Then she goes slightly down and he roars.

The dark haze is gone, and exaltation and shame set in. There is something both exhilarating and insulting in seeing her dark crown above his organ, her velvety lips on his tip. She will receive the best of him, his best flesh and his best form – and not this.

He pulls the residuum of her galaxy off of her. He lowers himself over her with a growl. She is completely naked now and it pumps new blood into him. He goes straight into her and feels he'll burst open like a bloody ripe jaquira fruit in a second. He realizes watching him do that selfish act on himself didn't deter her or served as a killer for her libido – on the contrary, it made her even greedier. Her legs lock around his waist and it's a tight grip. She is strong and demanding – true imperial conduct.

And then she goes on and does something completely democratic.

"I love you", she whispers softly in his ear and he can feel the genuine tenderness and the care she has for him. The genuine concern he'll get killed by one of his innumerate enemies or that he'll just descend even further into the darkness. Her longing and her fear of losing him.

He thinks he'll just lose all his magnificent build-up at this sort of democracy bullshit, but he doesn't. Why doesn't he?

She keeps her legs around him, fastening him in, pointing him the direction. Her small feet touching him from the behind, her small hands on his back and on his neck.

He quickens, and she clings to him like he was the last remaining stone to climb on in a deluge. Many nations had the story of the great flood. This was theirs. Her center so wet and so hungry he practically dissipates completely in her. They come almost in absolute unison, only she is there slightly before him - like they finished off the guards in that accursed place of greatest pain and greatest pleasure, in the Throne Room.

It's good – he can see every single second of her orgasm and it relieves him of his headache, miraculously.

She unlocks him only when he's completely limp and lets him fall on her side. Two naked bodies, completely exhausted in mutual paroxysm, contend, tranquil even – he wishes he had a single large mirror on the ceiling so he might have the whole scope of that glorious picture just hovering above him, etching its way into his memory. He needs to push so many nightmarish memories from his hemispheres, and he'd gladly trade all of them off for this exact night.

But that darkness, although subdued, runs through his veins for too long to be so easily manipulated – it seeks revenge almost immediately and starts tormenting him even through the post-orgasmic haze.

"If I'm killed, you're free, Rey", he says again in his low voice.


	22. Chapter 22 (Final Chapter)

So, this is the final chapter. I end it in an earnest tone. No ludicrousness, just some really tender and genuine moments.

Also, a shout out to everyone suffering an anxiety disorder. So does Ben Solo here - all hail our imperfect hero.

* * *

" _You don't belong with them." Tekka spoke calmly, in matter-of-fact tones, and without any fear._ _ **Speaking truth to the lie that stood before him, striving to bring light to darkness.**_ _The hope was a faint one, but he had to try. "The First Order arose from the dark side. You did not."_

 _"Once more she climbed to her feet, her chilled breath preceding her. From in front of her, not far away, came the sounds of battle: the cries of the wounded and the clashing of weapons. Then behind her, another voice. That voice._

 _"Stay here. I'll come back for you."_

 _She whirled, glazed eyes desperately scanning the dark gaps between the slender trees, trying to penetrate the darkness. "Where are you?" She started running toward the voice._

 _ **"I'll come back, sweetheart. I promise."** "_

Alan Dean Foster, _TFA novelization._

* * *

 _I'm giving you a nightcall  
To tell you how I feel  
I'm gonna drive you through the night  
Down the hills  
I'm gonna tell you something  
You don't want to hear  
I'm gonna show you where it's dumped  
But have no fear_

 _There's something inside you  
It's hard to explain  
There's something inside you boy  
But you're still the same._

London Grammar, _A Nightcall._

* * *

She sits up back again. Gods, that back and those shoulders – and a wayward strand of her hair that swirls down her neck like a snake.

"No", she says and the smile is gone. "It's not like that at all. I won't lie to you – at first, I thought that would be a necessary outcome. Since Crait, I had no hope. Sometimes, hope is what kills people. The anticipation of things that will never come to pass. Waiting for people that will never come back".

He now understands – Padme and her parents. And now, him.

"So, what has changed?" He frowns, fearing he won't like the answer. It tears him apart, again. "The fact you liked how it felt? The whole damn fuckery? Perhaps you should try other men and see there is nothing remotely spectacular about sex. Absurd pumping and useless discharge, and at the crux of the matter is just procreative instinct".

It is hard to concentrate after nights of insomnia and with her cat-like body pressing against him like soft silk. But he has to try.

"Consider your precious General: he'd be more than eager to volunteer for the spot", he makes a weak growl and almost chokes on his words. "Don't think I'm unaware where the TIE fighters and X-wings came from. Don't think I don't know everything about your late-night calls to Poe fucking Dameron. You Jedi make for weak spies, ever since Obi Wan".

He almost wants to provoke that old hatred again, but to his amazement, she only clings to him tighter. She practically builds a nest at his side and her pure, warm energy again quickens his heart and makes the darkness go running in terror.

"Had you died", she mutters. "A part of me would die, Ben".

 _What sort of agenda is this?_

"By my prospects, I will probably die soon. Or perhaps you'll die here either way", he snarls, but doesn't push her back. "The woman whose earrings you're wearing died here in a position similar to yours. Do you know there was an older palace here before, little Jedi?"

She nods. How beautiful she is – her braids are now unruly, delicate strands of hair around her creating a halo. That dark hair of hers now definitely resembles a crown – a crown of dark mineral embroidered with golden threads. He wants to kiss that crown and pledge his allegiance to it. He wants to bury his lips into that crown and caress its silk all the while she's lying next to him, just like she is now.

But the nagging darkness won't go away and he finds himself retorting again in a snarky voice.

"Do you know what happened to it?"

"He demolished it", she says. "Anakin Skywalker demolished it. She was haunting his dreams and his waking reality. The memory was too painful for him to bear".

"The Sith Lord, Darth Vader, demolished it", he said hectically, irritated by how right she is. "And with it, the last remaining pieces of his humanity and of his weakness were destroyed. He was free. Perhaps I should be freed of you".

 _Lies._

"And then a young Jedi came and saved him", she said and smiled. "Tell the whole story. You promised never to lie to me: that lies and deception are the way of the Jedi, not yours".

She embraces him now – now the damn murderous and delicate things are on his ribs. She can crucify him if she wants, but he won't move.

"So you are the young Jedi to save me?" He laughs bitterly. "You remember Crait, Rey. You remember the Hosnian system, you remember him – both of them. All of them – don't you think I'm not aware it is I who killed her as well?"

"I sensed the Dark Side, Ben", she says. "I went straight into it, without hesitation. I know how powerful it is".

"No", he almost yells. "No. You don't have a faintest idea what you're talking about".

His mind roams around again like wounded beast.

"I know what he did to you", she whispers and kisses him on the lips and caresses his hair like a child. "I know it hurts still. But it hurts because you don't belong to the Darkness, Ben. You're light that darkness couldn't extinguish. The First Order arose from the dark side. You did not. You're my light. Let me be yours".

Her words are like soft salve against terrible burns. And the prophetic echo of Tekka's words penetrates his heart like a syringe through a festering wound. But she always overestimated herself, always – now in particular. She doesn't know him, she simply doesn't.

"I'm too far gone, you stupid little girl", he says woefully, and his voice turns into a wail.

"And yet, you regret it", she says gently. "Does it make you good in turn? Or bad, because you can't stop yourself? But you did stop yourself. With Leia on Raddus; in the Throne Room; even at Crait; then on Mandalore; then with the Resistance. In Takodana forest; at the Starkiller Base".

She climbs on top of him slowly and takes his head into her hands; she acts like he is some sort of injured wild animal she is trying to help. He lets her touch him, first jolting at the sensation of her hand on the back of his neck, then leaning in, slowly yielding.

"Why don't you yield to me, Ben?" Her eyes are the Butterfly Nebula. Her voice is the softest of breezes. "Why don't you let me heal you? You know I can".

"Don't overestimate the power of your tight cunt, Jedi", he growls back, trying everything to make her recoil and punch him right in the scrotum or to mutilate him and kill him. He is so tired: not just now, but of it all. He'd welcome death. And to die by her hand would be the sweetest death of all.

But she is so unwavering it's almost frightening – she takes his chin into her small hand. The grip is strong and authoritative, yet tender. Leia's ring grazes his cheek – it's slick and cold, a reminder of this strange reality he is stuck in. She never caught him with a girl in his room, and he suspects she would be rather cool about the whole business. Invite the girl for a cup of coffee, order them all a breakfast worthy of princes and princesses, embarrass him so he'd wish he was dead; Solo appearing at the most inopportune of the moments for joined breakfast and war stories, with them both fighting over girl's attention with jokes and humor and with who kissed whom and did he actually said "I know" to her tender "I love you"… gods, it's cringe-worthy but also so nostalgic and painful at the same time. And of course, she never caught him with a girl in his bed because she was never there to begin with and he never had a girlfriend, not ever. He was dispatched to Jedi academy at the tender age of 13. And afterwards, the liberation wasn't liberating at all. All his strength was channeled into the Dark Side, and all his encounters with the opposite sex were just a routine decompression, a glitch in the system, a moment of desperation when his loneliness felt too great and the pull to the Light too strong.

"Just tell me, and I'll turn everything around", she whispers to his ear. "I have everything planned out. I know where Ahch-to is. I can heal you. Let me do it. You admire my strength, my powers – let me show it all to you. What you've seen so far is nothing. But first, you have to come with me. It's not too late, my love".

Had he instructed her to speak like this? He must have. The old… master Luke Skywalker.

"Who told you to tell me this?" He hisses, but loses his breath.

"He has shown me the possibilities. The future – his vision is so much more heightened now", she murmurs back, completely in tune with that low Force hum that reverberates between them. "It all depends on you. It has always depended on you. No one could destroy you – you're still you inside, I know it, Ben".

 _This is treason_ , he thinks to himself. _This is sort of a treason the First Order hasn't got an appropriate punishment for yet. She broke the treaty. This is mutiny – good. I counted on that. I counted she won't be able to restrain herself, to restrain that damn Light within her. Good – I'll make a punishment worthy of a Jedi and of an Empress._

But his train of thought crushes like traffic accident involving multiple vehicles, millions upon millions of them. The old dread again – the panic, the grip of major anxiety attack is upon him. Oh, no, not now – not with her. He hadn't had one of those in years, ever since he broke from the Jedi.

"Rey", his voice is now broken. He can't speak. He's choking. He used to choke people to death, and now he is choking. Panics, like before, like when he was young, like when he feared he won't pass all his Jedi tests. Like when he felt the whole weight of the galaxy resides on his shoulders, like everyone is scrutinizing his every single step and scaling if he's his grandfather's spitting image or not. Like at the beginning with Snoke.

 _Breathe._

But she is there. Her strong arms are there to support him. They reach out through the darkness and he clings onto them.

 _The men are thinned out and drunk. Everyone is absorbed with celebrations. No one will notice we are gone for a long time. Come. There is a freighter prepared at the landing dock. I'll fly. I can do it. You know I can._

"The Resistance", he finally murmurs.

"They don't know", she speaks softly. "They know nothing of this. They only know I'll run away at some point, but it's all at need to know basis. I won't tell them until the time is right. It's growing. The Resistance is growing. Luke's death sparked the hope across the galaxy. Every single slave and child and the downtrodden now know the legend of the invincible Jedi who defeated the whole army. When you're ready, you'll join them. And they'll welcome you. And we'll defeat the First Order, together, my love. We'll crush every evil, every Snoke, every Emperor galaxy might create".

She kisses away his silent tears. He hasn't cried in years. He hasn't cried since he was but a boy.

"Sweetheart", he finally utters and his throat hurts under the strain. She did wait. She was always there, waiting for him to come back.

And he did come back.

They don't need to rush. Everything is in order. His soldiers let them through and he carries her saber with him. Both of them in their respective clothes: him in his usual black, her wearing that dark apprentice uniform. They reach the landing pod and climb onboard a light freighter equipped with fuel, weapons and provisions. She sets their coordinates.

Soon, they are just one of the many sparks in the night sky, reflected in the imperial lake underneath.


End file.
